ODA celebrates new facilities

It’s only the second day of the school year for Out-of-Door Academy, but Head of School David Mahler is already starting to look at the weather a little differently.

“I started to think of the weather in terms of it’s a good solar day,” he said during ODA’s first school assembly on Aug. 17 at ODA’s Siesta Key campus.

Students, parents and donors gathered under the Kozel Family Amphitheater to celebrate the addition of 730 solar panels to ODA’s campus.

“These fans are spinning as a result of energy being produced on the roof of this building,” Mahler said.

The addition of the panels is part of a comprehensive effort to encourage students to adopt sustainable practices on the lower school campus as well as the upper school campus in Lakewood Ranch.

Students were given capes with the ODA logo and sustainability superheroes printed on them.

“We want to teach them about consumption,” Mahler said. “This is just kind of the tip of the iceberg to do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint.”

Mahler hopes to expand the solar programming to ODA’s upper school campus in the future, but said he is excited to see panel’s effect on the lower school. He said the panels, which were funded by an anonymous donor, could save the school as much as $60,000 in utility costs.

“We were looking for an opportunity to make a statement,” Mahler said.

But the panels weren’t the only addition to the campus during the summer months. ODA staff also cut the ribbon on the school’s new marine science laboratory.

The classroom, complete with multiple aquariums and a multi-tiered touch tank, was the product of a partnership with Mote Marine Laboratory.

ODA Facilities Director David Dennehy said the marine lab project was unlike many other projects he has worked on. Usually, he manages projects with overarching goals and long-term results, like the solar panels.

But this one, he said, is special, because the results are immediate. Children filed through their new laboratory, some pointing and gasping at the sea urchins and fish in the tanks.

“There is a direct benefit to the students,” Dennehy said. “You can see on day one that students are playing with it.”