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nyC Green Roofs

11/17/2017

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.
 
There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report.  This way the teacher has the option!  Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout. 
 
A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:
“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals…this is the lab book for you. 
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what i was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”
 
You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now.  It’s a great resource!
 
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
 
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !
 
“NYC [New York City] is approximately 72% impervious. With all that paved area—surfaces such as parking lots, building rooftops, streets, and sidewalks—water has nowhere to go when it rains but run down the streets and into gutters, collecting an array of toxic pollutants before it ends up in local waterways.
To help reduce the city’s stormwater runoff problems, DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] has made commitments to ‘green’ 8,000 acres of impervious area by 2030. This method of capturing rain water where it falls is commonly referred to as ‘green infrastructure,’ which includes rain gardens, green roofs, and roadside plantings, to name a few examples.”
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/alisa-valderrama/paying-private-property-owners-nyc-go-green
 
“Mayor de Blasio [of NYC] announced the launch of Cool Neighborhoods NYC, a new $106 million program designed to curb the effect of extreme heat and rising temperatures from climate change, including $82 million to fund street tree plantings in neighborhoods identified as disproportionately vulnerable to heat-health risks. This comprehensive city program will involve proactive and reactive measures in heat-sensitive neighborhoods to help mitigate the threat to public health from the urban heat island effect exacerbated during summer months.”
https://actreesnews.org/alliance-for-community-trees-news/nyc-mayor-announces-100m-trees-green-roofs/
 
At  one project, "[c]urrently, you can hear the birds. When the green roof finished, you’ll hear water running in a fountain. …all the rainwater will help water the plants instead of flowing into the sewer system. Many residents see the green roof as the wave of the future for urban living. … The project cost $6.5 million and it was paid for by refinancing the mortgage on the building.”
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/06/22/riverdale-green-roof/
This article has a brief news report as well.
 
Here is another recent news report showing a green roof and the attraction to wildlife.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-city-javits-convention-center-green-roof-renovation/
 
“Seeking rest stops for food, water and shelter along the way, migrating birds passing over New York will congregate in whatever islands of suitable habitat they can find. The growing number of green roofs – tops of roofs covered completely or partially by vegetation – is providing birds with such habitats.”
http://www.urbanstrong.com/green-roof-habitat-for-the-birds/
 
“In recent years, green roofs have been installed on top of dozens of buildings throughout the city… NYC Audubon, which works to protect wild bird habitats in the city, has been involved in creating and monitoring of two such spaces — on top of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and, most recently, on the rooftop of an industrial building at 520 Kingsland Ave. in Greenpoint, near Newtown Creek.
But no one actually knows how many green roofs are there in the city… [There are] different types of green roofs — from rooftop gardens with pots and planters to installed green roofs consisting of layers of protective roof membranes, soil and plants... 
Green roofs…are important for a number of reasons. They are crucial to stormwater management as they absorb rain, preventing it from entering the city’s sewer system. They also help mitigate the so called heat-island effect, which results in urban areas being significantly warmer than nearby rural areas, and create new wildlife habitats.”
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20170419/jamaica/nyc-audubon-new-york-community-trust-green-roofs-online-database-habitat-migrating-birds
 
Green roofs as a solution to the Urban Heat Island Effect began in the early 19th century.  A timeline of various developments are presented in the following article.https://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/macbride13/research/history-of-green-roofs-the-urban-heat-island-effect/
 
“As urban areas develop, changes occur in their landscape. Buildings, roads, and other infrastructure replace open land and vegetation. Surfaces that were once permeable and moist become impermeable and dry. These changes cause urban regions to become warmer than their rural surroundings, forming an ‘island’ of higher temperatures in the landscape.”
https://www.epa.gov/heat-islands/learn-about-heat-islands
 
One company, New York Green Roofs, has several projects online that can be viewed, including thumbnail photos of each project.
https://www.newyorkgreenroofs.com/projects
 
“The temperature on a sun-soaked asphalt roof in New York can top out near 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Black-top roofs are also a strain on the city's sewage and drain systems – since dark roofs absorb little to none of the city's rainwater, propelling tsunamis of runoff into storm drains – clogging sewer lines, pooling water and causing innocent bystanders... to suffer the gutter splashes from thoughtless cars.
Chemical engineer and Low & Bonar CEO Brett Simpson says he's on a mission to change this old ecosystem. He wants to shift the pace at which cities move around their water, air and even the birds and bees – and he's hoping he can do all this… with a few more high-tech roof mats.
His company's lightweight 'Xero Flor' green roofing mats are on the largest green roof in America, which is about 8 football fields worth of short, green shrubbery perched atop a Ford truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan. But not all his green installations are so massive: some 9,000 square feet of terraced areas on the pointy Empire State Building have more recently gone green, too. You can't see much of this rooftop transformation happening from the ground, but Simpson says that up on the roof, business is good.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hilarybrueck/2017/05/31/raising-the-green-roof-why-more-big-city-businesses-are-putting-plants-up-top/#721eaf0953fb
This page also has a video clip with Brett Simpson summarizing green roofs.
 
“Recognizing [the] benefits [of green roofs], the City of New York and New York State passed legislation in 2008 to provide a one-year tax abatement, or tax relief, of $4.50 per square foot (up to $100,000 or the building's tax liability, whichever is less). Amended in 2013, the tax abatement is now available through March 15, 2018.”
http://www.nyc.gov/html/gbee/html/incentives/roof.shtml
 
“Because a green roof will add substantial weight to a building’s structure, you must hire a Professional Engineer or Registered Architect to perform a structural analysis to determine if the existing roof and its support system can hold the added load without a modification.”
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/buildings/industry/sustainability-green-roofs.page
 
This blog post concentrates on Green Roofs in New York City – it would be interesting for your students to research other projects in the United States and around the world.
 
Other related blog posts:
 
10/13/2017      Overview of Global Climate Change
 
03/03/2017      China's Vertical Forests
 
01/27/2017      2016 Warmest Year on Record
 
*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom.  Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
 
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
 
Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Have a great weekend!

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    Marjorie R. Heesemann is a chemistry teacher with 15 years of experience who is now working to develop resources for the Chemistry classroom.

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