Project Description

I go to Sandy High School in Sandy Oregon, and this year I took a trip with the Green Club at school into Portland to view some of the many eco-friendly green roofs installed on several large and small buildings throughout the city. There was even a middle school with an eco-garden. After the trip I was very impressed by how effective and efficient these green roofs are. Within the next four years we are supposed to have a new high school built, up and running. The blueprints and such are currently in the works, from what I know, and evidently the architecht is environmentally oriented. This inspired me to contact our tour guide to find out more and to see if we could get one set up here at Sandy High. I've been speaking with some of the science teachers and the tour guide and we're considering installing an eco-roof over the science wing or breezeway out current school. The purpose of this would be to prove its effectiveness and hopefully convince school officials/whom it may concern to install eco-roofs in the new school. Doing this would benefit the school, environment, and students in many ways. An eco-roof is, in short, just grass or other similar such plants that grow on the roof. When you do this it minimizes the amount of water that just runs down the gutter and into the sewer(actually it captures anywhere from 10-100 percent of the water). Instead, conserving it and allowing it to water the grass. Having healthfully growing grass on the roof then helps to cut down on cooling costs for the school; the grass serves as an insullator. Costs are also being cut long term, seeing as an eco-roof lasts at least twice as long the conventional roof. A few more random facts courtesy of PortlandOnline.com : the eco-roofs lower the temperature of stormwater runoff which helps maintain a cool stream temperature needed by fish - this is important as Sandy High school is located very close to the Sandy river, an eco-roof improves outdoor air quality by decreasing air temperatures and reducing smog. I would love to get a project like this going at Sandy High school and hopefully even branch out into the community, my teachers and school advisors are all for it but the problem is we have no funding to even get things started. I think given the opportunity, a chance to set up an eco-roof at Sandy high school would leave nothing but a postive impact on the environment, students, school officials, and community members.