We recently covered the benefits of green schools. Environmental sustainability is just the start. Green features like fresh air, open plants, and multi-use facilities that encourage community interaction contribute to higher student test scores and teacher retention rates.

Education and sustainability are both so important it's hard to decide which is the positive externality. Green schools make too much sense.

A Utah middle school is going green and with that news comes more on the benefits of natural light ("natty light" as the students call it).

*Test scores increased as much as 26% among students who learned in classrooms filled with natural light, according to a study by Heschong Mahone Group of Sacramento, Calif. that looked at 20,000 California, Colorado and Massachusetts in 1998 and 2002.

*Sales were boosted 40% in a Kansas Wal-Mart at registers situated under skylights, according to a 1995 study by the same firm.

*Companies that have invested in new natural lighting retrofits to existing facilities have seen worker productivity jump between 13-16%, according to Greening The Building And The Bottom Line, a report it produced with the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Via TreeHugger and The Daily Green.