Sustainability & Efficiency

In 2011, USN with partner Lightwave Solar Systems installed a 100-panel 24kW solar panel array at the River Campus.

Initially wired to power sports facilities and offset power use, it was updated in 2021 to 100 290W panels, improving capacity to 29kW total. It is now fully integrated and delivers 100% of its power generation back into Nashville's energy grid for cost savings and offsetting carbon emissions.

Born out of an eighth grade change project, USN’s green roof is student-led and maintained. Consisting of seven raised beds on the school’s near century-old roof, it provides a restorative habitat for Tennessee pollinators and native species driven out by Nashville’s urban growth.

The green roof also serves as a curricular resource to accompany USN’s education surrounding naturalism, environmental stewardship, biology, earth systems, and urban design. The existing green roof is one part of an extensive master plan for the Edgehill Campus.

USN features 15 acres of marsh and are accessible by over a thousand feet of boardwalk built by the volunteers of USN community.

With over 80 identified animal species and 50 plant species, the wetlands provide a live habitat for students to study and explore across all grades. While Lower School Naturalists explore the flora and fauna, High School AP Environmental Science students wade through the swampy waters to test pollution levels. 

The Young Naturalist program fosters an appreciation for the natural world for our youngest students and connects the scientific and developmental concepts of a Lower School education with real-life experience in the outdoors. Starting in kindergarten, young naturalists journey to different ecosystems in the Tennessee area every month. Beyond journeys, Forest Days bring students to “the Lodge,” an old Girl Scout cabin in Edwin Warner Park surrounded by the forest.

Shelby Bottoms, Radnor Lake, Beaman Park, Old Growth Forest, Warner Park, The USN Wetlands, and the USN Outdoor Classroom are natural environments frequented by our Young Naturalists from kindergarten to fourth grade. The naturalist foundation established in Lower School is continued through Out of These Doors trips and Wilderness Days in Middle School as well as High School trips, retreats and independent study projects.

In May 2018, University School of Nashville’s Edgehill Campus gained recognition as a Level I Arboretum through certification with the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council. The arboretum’s 32 labeled species span the entire 7-acre campus, from the front lawn to the Outdoor Classroom. As an arboretum, USN serves as a tremendous tool for teaching naturalism and conservation to students, particularly in Lower School’s Young Naturalist program.

USN’s foliage: reduces the urban heat island effect, the phenomenon that explains the comparative warmth of Nashville’s urban microclimate; sequesters carbon and other atmospheric irritants that lead to climate change and respiratory illness; and fosters a green, welcoming campus for students and community members.

USN's new sustainable energy system is more efficient and powered by natural gas instead of coal. Improving and renewing USN’s energy supply will modernize the original system to heat and cool the Main Building, West Wing, and Gordon Wing. It also will have future capacity for chilled water loop on the new Vanderbilt system.

Our University neighborhood steam line, part of the original Peabody Demonstration School when doors opened in 1925, has been a crucial yet hidden proverbial link to Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College for decades even after its 1975 transition to become USN. In an effort that serves environmental, budgetary, and safety purposes, Vanderbilt recently decided to forego its dependence on coal-powered steam heat and switch to a hot water and chilled water loop.