Plants that digest toxic waste, parks built from old building materials, trees that lower utility bills and many other sustainable concepts are part of a new free educational resource from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

“Few outside of the landscape architecture profession fully understand the benefits of sustainable landscape design, and even less know how these design techniques actually work,” said ASLA President Jonathan Mueller, FASLA. “This new resource will serve as Sustainable Design 101 for students and teachers alike by explaining complex environmental systems in a clear, understandable format.”

Made possible by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, the site includes six animations to view at home or in the classroom; more than 60 different classroom activities, videos, games, and lesson plans that cover grades K-12; plus 20 examples of real-world projects from around the world.

ASLA developed the animations with author and Google SketchUp expert Daniel Tal, ASLA. The six animations include Building a Park out of Waste, Energy Efficient Home Landscapes, Designing for Active Living, From Industrial Waste to Community Park, Leveraging the Landscape to Manage Water and Revitalizing Communities with Parks. Each animation includes an accompanying educational resource with classroom activities and interactive case studies. Four more animations and educational resource guides are planned for 2011.

In addition to the animations, the resource now includes 20 case studies of sustainable projects of all sizes, including master plans, university campuses, urban farms, green roofs and backyards. Each case study lists the project’s environmental benefits and includes a slideshow with images and descriptions, project facts and a downloadable one-page brief.

The resource is available at www.asla.org/animations.