by Abe Louise Young
SOMERVILLE, MA—At the corner of Mystic Avenue and Temple Street, on the grounds of an old Catholic parish, a surprising sight greets the eye. Birds whirl above a landscape of drought-tolerant plants growing on the rooftop. A palette of bright green vegetation stands out against the blue sky.
In a pioneering ecology project, a team of high-school students created this living roof. Neha Sharma, 18, is a first-year student at Boston University. She says, “Every time I pass that building, I’m like, “We built that green roof! And I make everybody look.”
The building is a new construction, a mixed-income, mixed-use development aimed to revitalize Somerville and provide new affordable housing. With the help of students from Prospect Hill Academy Charter School, the Saint Polycarp Village Apartments won a coveted LEED Silver Rating certification.
Sharma and a team of students studied ecology, engineering, economics, and design. They imagined, sketched, and negotiated. After a year’s preparation, in May of 2009 they put on hardhats and spread out the layers: growing medium, and soil. Then they planted the landmark green roof.
Fellow Prospect Hill Academy student Alex Maciel shares Sharma’s pride. “Not many people get the chance to build a green roof in their whole lives, much less in high school, and we did. It’s the first green roof in this town, and leads the way for sustainable buildings. I’m really proud.”
A green roof is made of various layers that are installed one at a time. There’s a rubber waterproofing membrane that covers the roof, drainage layers, a four-inch growing media, wind protection, and then the plants themselves.
What’s the benefit? Sharma says, “Financially, green roofs save a lot of money on heating and cooling costs. They keep buildings cooler in the summer and warmer and the winter, so they decrease overall energy costs. When there’s a lot of heavy rain, green roofs can take in a lot of water, so all the water won’t rush into the city sewer system.”
“And, if workplaces have a green roof, it creates a healthier environment for workers. It creates a lighter atmosphere. It makes people feel better, they have a place to meet and talk, it increases good feelings in a community.”
“When we started the class,” Maciel notes, “we didn’t know that much. We really had to take the things we knew from the lower grades and build upon them – physics, math, all our knowledge and learning from previous years came much more on deck.”
Sharma says, “The first semester of the class was building up the content—the information. The second semester was about the green roof— doing the research of how it affects people socially, financially, and environmentally. After that we got to design what the green roof looked like, and then do the actual installation process, which took a week.”
Teachers Kaitlin LeMoine and Michael Moretti worked to shepherd the process, without taking the lead. APEX Green Roofs, their contracting partner, came into the classroom and assured the safety of the project. Purdue University backed them up, as part of an initiative called Engineering Projects in Community Service.
LeMoine explains, “How to genuinely involve high school students in community work – and specifically, involve teams of kids to do the work together, is a challenging question! They had to learn to discuss with the partners, design and redesign, involve a whole community in the process, rather than just follow the idea from their minds.”
Niha Sharma felt her life turn when she was up on the roof. She decided to major in environmental engineering. “I realized that I wanted my life to be about creating things that help people and the environment,” she says.
The students agree that creating the green roof was a most significant moment in their high school education. Maciel says, “The best part for me was the day we got to go up to the roof, it was really fun, we were doing work, hard work, but it was easy to work so hard because there were people around us who were doing it too.”
“Students should ask their teachers to help them make projects that affect a whole community,” Sharma says. “Really push for that. You’ll never forget it.”
LEARN MORE
Case Study of Somerville’s First Green Roof (PDF)
EPICS-Green Roof Curriculum Materials (PDF)
