Lots of progress

Since the last post I have been waiting on the representative from Weston Solutions.  Chris at Weston Solutions has been great!  He has offered two of each type of modular Green Grid for FREE!  That’s right, free!  Chris finally contacted me Thursday and all the materials are in and ready for delivery.  He is going to call me on Monday morning to schedule the delivery.  Theyare probably going to be there on Tuesday.  Chris and another representative from Weston Solutions are going to deliver the units and help set them up as well.  Dr. Shive and the rest of us are very excited.

We finally got approval to utilize the solvent shed (which is located net to the roof we want to put the green roof on) to test out the monitoring station and place our plants.  We are also going to set up and test the flow meter Alex designed.

Jenn is working diligently on trying to set up the monitoring station, but she is still running into problems with the unit communicating with the Univ. network. 

Talk to you soon!

Busy Week!

It’s been a long week!  To get an idea of what Cathy and I have been doing here is a picture of where we have spent most of our time. 

This week Cathy has spent most of her time in meetings and sorting rain data.  She is finally getting closer to finish it.  She’s been working with the same data since we started. 

I have been researching heat flux.  Essentially the transfer of heat from the building through the roof.  We are going to set up the monitoring station to model heat flux on a storage shed because we are still not allowed to go on the roof of the building. 

Alex is working on constructing a flow rate monitor.  I have been brainstorming ideas with him and went to Sears to get supplies for the prototype.  Right now it’s a 3″ PVC tube that has a “V” notch in it.  We’re going to put the tube in the drain in the roof to monitor the flow rate of runoff.  Jenn is looking into pressure sensors to mount on the bottom of the tube which will hook up to the monitoring station.

I also made contact with Weston Solutions and ordered the modular grids for the roof.  I’ve been emailing the representative back and forth for a week now explaining what we want and that we want to run a test before we purchase the grids for the final roof.  He has been really great and has offered 2 of each modular grid for free.  There is also a UD alumni that works for Weston Solutions, and she wants to come down and help set up the units.

Finally, Annette is going on vacation next week.  This means we have to get a lot of tasks done befor she leaves, so we will be very busy.

Lesson Planning

Today we spent a significant portion of our day lesson planning.   We had a meeting that was used collaborate about what we want to do next year in our class rooms.  Cathy and I  created a rubric for student self assessment.  Our students are going to design a lab and run the lab.  During the procedures the students will video tape their lab and view the tape the following day to analyze their procedures.  This is where they will use the rubric. 

In the second half of the day I contacted Weston Solutions about ordering the modular GreenGrids.  I spoke with Chris at Weston Solutions who set me up with a plant list and is also working up a quote on a test sample of the GreenGrids. 

Now it’s just about time to head out for the weekend and enjoy the 4th!  Have a great weekend!

More Research

More of the same today.  Nothing that much to talk about, but I enjoed learning even more about green roofs.  Kathy and I spent the entire day in the basement computer lab.  She finally got her data into Excell 2007, and I spent the day summarizing my findings about modular GreenGrids.  Here are some cool pictures. 

Hopefully Alex will get  the pipe for the flow meter so we can build it and test and calibrate the flow rate. That should be fun!

Monday 6/29/09

The first full week of research!  Today I spent a significant amount of time with Cathy, Kevin, and Dan trying to get an ID.  A bit frustrating, but as least I am familiar with the campus now.  We went to three different buildings trying to get things cleared up, and in the end no ID.

Kathy and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon researching more info on the green roofs. 

At 1pm, we had a meeting with the whole group to get an update on the progress of the project.  We met Erin-senior landscape student, Chad- Landscape Design staff, Kathy- graduate student, Lesley- somehow involved in storm water management, Milue-?, and Maria- works with facilities.  This was a 3 hour meeting that really brought clarity to the project for me.  Mostly how and why the project was progressing.  During the meeting it was decided that we would buy a few GreenGrids to test, as well as test different types of soil composition.  I spoke with Chad Nelson about visiting the supplier of the soil and the GreenGrids. 

We ordered a monitoring station and would like to test the different depths of soil and compositions as well.  We are also going to look at latent heat removal off the building.  As the water evaporates, it takes heat with it.  We want to see if there is an optimal moister level and soil depth the facilitate this evaporation.

Very productive day!

First Week as a RET

Well, this is the end of the first week at the U of D in the RET program.  What a week!  The first few days a as expected; a bit boring, but necessary.  We listened to a lot of lectures about safety and background information the research, which is why I signed up for this experience, so I really enjoyed hearing about the current research.

Thursday I finally got started on the research aspect of the program and really got familiar with what my role wil involve in the “Green Roofs” project.  I must be honest in saying that it is not what I was expecting, but I’m sure I will still enjoy it and learn a great deal from the experience.  I guess I was expecting to spend some time in an actual lab helping with running and/or analyzing tests.  As of right now, we (Cathy Kappel and I) are reading research papers to learn about green roofs and researching and collecting more data from these research papers to help justify the expenditures on the green roof. 

So today Friday June 26th, I am diving in and researching the types of modular units we can test for the green roof, the effects of types of soil on heat transfer as well as the effects of soil depth on water retention and heat transfer.

And finally we met the two undergrads, Jen and Alex who are also researching with us as well.  Found out we all like Nickleback.  Great people!

Students want technology!

The video is a wonderful eyeopener into the views and opinions of the student.  They want to be engaged!  They want to use their technology!  They want to learn!

I find the challenge not in getting them interested in the technology, but keeping them focused on the task at hand.  They want to us the technology to play, not learn about what the standards say they should learn.  This is my dilemma.

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