Hello Friends,

In the last month, I underwent an experience that was truly life changing. I attended a program called Shad Valley. In plain words Shad Valley is a month long enrichment program for some of Canada?s brightest children. However, for all of us it was a transformational experience. And an integral part of this experience was the ?house project?. The house project is a project that had to be conducted in response to a prompt through engineering and marketing a product that would solve the issue raised by the prompt. This year?s prompt for the brightest children in Canada to solve was, ?How might Canadians live large on a small footprint?. This topic questions us how can we live a luxurious life while reducing our environmental footprint. It challenges the current fact that environmentalism and luxury cannot coexist.

So, the project that my group engineered at this project was a rooftop garden like no other. This rooftop is a rooftop garden engineered for educational purposes and could be implemented in schools, universities, and libraries. It would have hard and soft returns on investment as well as many environmental benefits. The arbor would be integrated into the school curriculum through as variety of courses such as home economics, biology, ecology, and other sciences. Also, rooftop gardens have a unique therapeutic influence. They provide green space which reduces chances of depression in children by 21%. They redefine the values of this generation by instilling values of environmentalism within children creating a cycle of sustainability.

Rooftop gardens also offer hard benefits such as energy savings. Rooftop gardens reduce energy bills by 21% every year. Rooftop gardens also increase the lifetime of a roof by 3 times. They also reduce the urban heat island effect by cooling urban centres by about 7 degrees in their yearly high temperature. They provide localized food fulfilling the 100 mile diet. Whats more?they only cost about 30% more than a traditional roof and provide a full return on investment within 3-4 years. Also, in urban areas, schools have been faced with classroom shortages and land shortages. They cannot expand their buildings, yet have unused roofs. We could use this as an educational space. They definitely cost a lot less than similar land space than in a city. So, by having more space, Canadian children can live large and at the same time reduce their footprint by becoming the next ?green generation?.

If you have any questions about our initiative or the program please let me know. I encourage all of you to get involved in enrichment programs?they are truly a good use of summer vacation!

Regards,

Nitish