1. We present to you: The Green Guards!

Apr. 17, 2012

We are the "Green Guards"

These is us: Roberto, Lizhar, Veronica, Camily, Kiara and Kevin. We call ourselves the Green Guards.
Apr. 19, 2012

Who we are?

We are a group of students from the Josefa Velez Bauzá High School , in Peñuelas, Puerto Rico. We are on 10th grade and we've known each other since Middle School. Even tough we all have different goals on life, we all got together with a common concern: improving our world to become a better place to live in. That's why we approached our former Science teacher from Middle School, Mr. Gonzalez, to help us make our ideas a reality. We wanted to create green roofs on our school. So, we embargoed into a journey that made us grow a lot as individuals and as team learning that to transform ideas into reality involves a lot of planning, changes, trials and errors. But most important that "failure is NEVER an option, but a stepping stone from which we learn!"

Apr. 17, 2012

Our Goals on a Glance!

High temperatures in Puerto Rico can become a problem, so imagine having to take classes in hot and humid classrooms. That's why we decided to propose a green solution to this problem.

We decided to use the concept and ideas of green roofs to make roof gardens on top of our classrooms. Not just to see if temperatures inside our classrooms would decrease, but to also find ecological alternatives that could help lower temperature inside our classrooms so our teachers and students can enjoy a more pleasant day of study and work at our school.  

As we started our project many questions arrived, such as:

  • Do we really have a problem?
  • Do people have any idea about what green roofs and rooftops gardens are?
  • Do we know what it takes to implement a green roof at school?  

So, we invite you to join on our journey, as we became   "The Green Guards" and  find the ways to find an answer to a red hot problem through a greener solution!

JOIN US ON OUR ADVENTURE!

  
  

Apr. 20, 2012

At a glance. A quick summary of what we did

  • First, we had our study problem well defined:

    "Can we decrease the temperature inside a classroom by using it's roof as a roof garden?"

  • Second, we decided to come out with a possible solution to our problem, a hypothesis:

    "If we build a rooftop garden on our school's rooftop, then we will be able to decrease the temperature inside the classrooms directly beneath it".

  • Third , we also did research on green roofs and rooftops gardens:

    We though they were the same thing. And we found out they are NOT! Keep with us and you will also learn the BIG differences.

  • Fourth, we designed our project and started doing some scientific research:

    We identified two classrooms to use as study subjects, identified then as classroom #1 (Control group, where we would not build a roof garden) and classroom # 2 (Experimental group, where we would build a roof garden). We placed two thermometers on each classroom. One directly on the rooftop and one inside the classroom under that roof and collected temperatures prior to the experimentation. For two months we collected data prior to the actual test of our hypothesis. We read temperatures above and inside the classrooms (both control and experimental) to see if there was a difference in temperature between the two groups prior to start our actual project. That way we got sure both classrooms had the same characteristics and could be used for the project.

  • Fifth, we put our hypothesis to the test:

    We built our rooftop gardens using wooden pallets, plants and mostly grass on top of our experimental classroom. For two extra months we read temperatures on both classrooms.

  • Sixth, we collected and analyzed our data:

    After two months of data we needed to compare temperatures from our experimental and control classrooms. We plotted them and had some cool findings!

  • Seven, we came out to some amazing conclusion!

    Want to see our results and find out what actually happen? Well, then continue our journey with us and you will find out!

  • Eight. we educated the community

    We had to show our findings and educate the community. We wanted everyone to be part of the solution to our problem so we designed lectures for our school community and even our political leaders. BECAUSE WE ALL ARE PART OF THE SOLUTION!!

Dec. 03, 2011

Dirty hands for a cleaner solution!

Here we are getting our hands dirty for what we hope will become a greener solution for our environment.
Getting dirty can be sooo much fun! :-)
Mar. 10, 2012

We even created a logo and a crest for our project: "Our Living Roof" & "The Green Gards"

 + 
  
 + 
This is our project logo which represents what we want to accomplish with our project.   This is our team's Crest "The Green Guards"
Apr. 17, 2012

A logo with a meaning ...

This drawing, created by Kiara, represents what we want to accomplish with our project: The hand represents our work and our togetherness as a team,the buildings represent the city that we live in, Peñuelas, and the plants represent the gardens that we intended to develop with our project.  Finally, the title on the middle of the drawing represents our future initiative to take this project beyond our school and implement it in other schools across the island.

 

Mar. 15, 2012

The Green Guards Crest!

This is the logo of our team:"The Green Guards"
The shovels represent one of the important tools we used to plant. The ivy growing on the sides is the prosper that we hope to get from this project. The flower with the planet inside represents our planet which is delicate. The hands are the ones that protects the Earth by our good efforts on protecting it. The white color inside the crest represents the emptiness that the roof use to have before making the roof garden.