Lesson: Design a Green Rooftop Garden
Posted on May 1st, 2011 by Mary Lord
This lesson for grades 6-8 explores how civil engineering has solved the challenge of moving water via irrigation. Students learn how irrigation systems direct water for use in farming or other purposes. Using everyday items, each team of students designs and builds an “irrigation system” capable of moving two cups of water at least three feet and distributing it evenly in two separate containers.
Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | 1 Comment »
Tags: Class Activities, Environmental Engineering, Environmental science, Grades 6-8, Green, Lesson Plan
The children’s programming TV network Nickelodeon is offering to feature camera footage of events with groups performing “green activities” that promote a healthy Earth environment. Submitted footage may be featured on the network or on their website.
For a former New York public school teacher and six young African-American men, a wrecked grocery store in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward has become a place of second chances. Nat Turner, a former history teacher, is the founder of Our School at Blair Grocery, a fledgling educational venture and commercial urban farm. The enterprise is an unusual hybrid of G.E.D. training and a farm academy.
In this lesson, students in grades 3 through 8 assume the role of building engineers, testing several materials to determine which would provide the best house insulation. They learn about the role of insulation in preventing heat transfer and discuss the importance of energy conservation in buildings.
One way both to save energy and curb climate change is to make surfaces – roofs, even streets – a light color. Solar radiation would be reflected into space rather than absorbed by buildings and pavement. Less air conditioning would be needed. If this were done uniformly, says Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the results could be huge – “the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars on the road for 11 years.”
The Sustainability Workshop video series from Autodesk, an eGFI sponsor, uses animated drawings and real-world examples in short films that explain essential concepts for budding engineers. Some topics include engineering systems, green design, turning an idea into a finished product, and even why modern bicycles look so different from those built 200 years ago.
The 
Student at Dallas’s independent Lakehill Preparatory School are enjoying their new $2.2 million Family Environmental Center, the Dallas Morning News reports. The idea for the center came from headmaster Roger Perry after he took noticed a swath of vacant land next to the school’s ball fields. The result is an impressive LEED standards complex that houses three science labs, a large meeting hall, and a retention pond. 
This 
