June 18th, 2013
Green Roofs have been used for centuries in European countries for their ease of construction, maintenance and ability to keep houses both warm in the winter and cool in the summer. During our class period Dr. Conlee took us out to the Green Roof project that is being constructed and maintained on the Langford architecture building across the field from the O&M building. Our goal for the day was to work on inserting temperature probes into the tarp underneath each group of plant boxes. We were placing these probes so that we would be able to take the temperature underneath the plant boxes and compare it to the temperature of the tarp on the rest of the roof. Each of the two plots of plant box groups are arranged in 3×3 blocks of individual plastic plant boxes grouped in a 3×3 shape. The tricky part of this operation was figuring out how to safely (for both the plants and people) remove the middle box of each box group in order to cut a hole in the tarp and safely insert the temperature probes. After sliding the boxes around we managed to remove the middle boxes of each plot. We then cut holes in the tarp, inserted the probes and then put some sealant around the probes to make sure they were anchored properly. With luck, the results of this experiment will hopefully indicate by what degree a green roof can keep a house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This project is a great way for students to get hands on experience with instrumentation and scientific data as well as seeing how meteorology can be integrated with other fields of scientific research.
- Ben Coates, Taylor Leger, Garret Sims, and Theresa Taeuber
