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• Can the Color of Your House Reduce Your Energy Bill?

Project Summary

Difficulty	4
Time required	Short (several days)
Prerequisites	None
Material Availability	Readily available
Cost	Low ($20 - $50)
Safety	Use caution when using exacto knife.

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Abstract

Objective

In this science fair project you will determine whether or not a rooftop garden can help keep a building cool.

Introduction

Imagine looking out over the rooftops of a city and seeing a canvas of living plants. All around the world rooftops are going green, especially in cities. These rooftop gardens are an environmentally friendly option that is gaining popularity. Living green roofs have many advantages, including providing more space for agriculture, adding beauty to the cityscape, and increasing the air quality. During photosynthesis, plants remove carbon dioxide from the air, and release oxygen. Over the course of a year, a single 1.5-meter by 1.5-meter section of a roof planted with grass produces enough oxygen to keep one human breathing for a year!

Another advantage of rooftop gardens is the fact that they absorb far less heat than traditional tar and gravel roofs. Because they sit in the direct sunlight for many hours, the temperature of traditional rooftops tends to rise above the actual air temperature. Then they radiate that heat back into the environment. If you live in a big city or have been to a mall with a lot of concrete buildings during warm months, you might have noticed the temperature difference between those areas and the suburbs or more rural areas. That's because when the heat is radiated back into the environment from the rooftops, an area with many buildings, like a city, can experience an increase in local air temperatures by as much as 5–7°F! This phenomenon is referred to as the urban heat island effect.

However, rooftop gardens might be able to diminish this effect. Measurements from the Chicago City Hall show that on a summer day, when the air temperatures were in the 90's, areas of the roof covered in black tar rose to a surface temperature of 169°F, while areas planted with a rooftop garden only rose to 119°F —that's a 50-degree difference (Chicago Department of Environment)!

Rooftop gardens lower the maximum surface temperatures on roofs, but does this translate into changes in the internal temperature of the rooms in the building? Can a rooftop garden help conserve energy and lower your energy bill by keeping the internal temperature cooler on hot sunny days? In this science fair project, you'll find out by building two model houses—one with a rooftop garden and one without—and then you'll compare how hot the inside of the houses get during the day and how they cool off when the sun goes down.

Figure 1. The photo on the left shows an overview of the extensive rooftop gardens on top of the Chicago City Hall. On the right is a close-up view of one of the gardens. (Chicago Department of Environment, Spring 2003.)

Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research

• Rooftop garden, sometimes referred to as a living roof or a green roof
• Urban heat island effect

Questions

• What is a rooftop garden?
• How do you construct a rooftop garden?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of a rooftop garden?
• What materials are roofs usually made of?

Bibliography

Here are some websites that will introduce you to the concept of rooftop gardens.

• California Acadamy of Sciences. (n.d.). The Living Roof. Retrieved April 20, 2008 from http://www.calacademy.org/academy/building/the_living_roof.php
• Chicago Department of Environment. (n.d.). Green Roof Basics. Retrieved April 20, 2008 from the City of Chicago Department of ronment's website: http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal
• Augustenborgs Botanical Roof Garden. (n.d.). About Green Roofs. Retrieved April 20, 2008 from
  http://www.greenroof.se/default.asp?pid=19

For help creating graphs, try this website:

• National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Create a Graph. Retrieved April 20, 2008 from http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/CreateAGraph/default.aspx

Materials and Equipment

• Garden clippers or strong scissors
• Shoeboxes or photo storage boxes (2) of the same size, color, and shape
• Tar paper; available at hardware stores (enough to cover two shoebox lids)
• Strong double-sided tape, like carpet tape or foam mounting tape (1 roll)
• Sod; available at most nurseries or garden supply stores (enough to cover one shoebox lid)
• Exacto knife
• Thermometers (3) Note: either indoor or outdoor thermometers will work. Try to avoid buying mercury thermometers, which can be dangerous if broken, and choose red alcohol thermometers instead.
  • Optional: For added convenience, you may opt to use probe digital thermometers (available at kitchen stores) for measuring the temperature inside the box houses to avoid taking the lids off. If you choose to do this, you will need 2 probe digital thermometers and 1 red alcohol thermometer.
• Lab notebook
• Heat lamp; available at pet supply stores or some hardware stores
• Heat lamp bulb, make sure it is a floodlight bulb rather than a spotlight bulb; available at hardware stores
• Graph paper for analyzing your data. Alternatively, you can make your graph using the Create a Graph program online and print it out for your lab notebook.

Experimental Procedure

Building the Box Houses

1. Using a pair of garden clippers or strong scissors, cut out two pieces of tar paper that are the same size as the lids of your shoeboxes.
2. With the double-sided tape, attach the tar paper to the top of the shoebox lids.
3. Place the lid of one of the boxes on the sod. Using the exacto knife, cut around the lid to get a piece of sod the same size as the lid.
4. Place the sod on top of the tar paper lid of one of the boxes.
   1. The box with the tar paper and sod lid will represent your rooftop garden house.
   2. The box with only the tar paper lid will represent your traditional house.

Figure 2. Use this diagram to help you properly assemble your traditional and rooftop garden box houses.

Measuring the Temperature in the Box Houses

1. Put your three thermometers all in one place (a tabletop or counter with the same amount of lighting and heating) for 15 minutes. Do they all read the same temperature? It is important that your thermometers do not have wide variations in their readings, as this would invalidate comparisons later. If any of the thermometers varies widely, use another thermometer. A degree or two of difference is ok.
2. Put one thermometer in each of your boxes.
   1. If you are using probe thermometers, these are the ones which will be inside the boxes. The probe will be inside the box. Close the lid as best as you can over the cord, and leave the digital reader part outside of the box.
3. Place the boxes on the same tabletop or counter, with the same amount of lighting and heating. These thermometers will allow you to record the indoor temperature of your box houses.
4. Place the third thermometer on the table between the two boxes, this is your external thermometer and represents the outside air temperature around your box houses. There is no need to use a probe thermometer for reading the external temperature.
5. After 30 minutes, record the temperatures. These are the starting temperatures.
   1. One at a time, open each of the boxes and quickly read the temperature on the thermometer. If you are using probe digital thermometers for inside your box houses, you will be able to read the temperature without removing the lids.
   2. Read the temperature on the external thermometer.
   3. Record your temperature readings in a data table, like the one below, in your lab notebook. These are the starting temperatures. Do the box houses have the same starting internal temperatures? Are the internal temperatures the same or different from the external temperature?

   	Starting Temperature (°F)
   External
   Internal of Rooftop Garden House
   Internal of Traditional House

6. Now place a heat lamp above the box houses. Space the boxes and external thermometer such that they are getting equal lighting from the heat lamp. The lighted heat lamp will provide warmth and simulate what happens to the houses during a hot, sunny day.
7. After 1 hour under the lighted heat lamp, record the temperatures using the same technique as in step 3. If you are using a red alcohol thermometer, make sure to put the lids back on the box houses as quickly as possible to maintain the internal temperature. These are the heated temperatures. How do the internal temperatures of the box houses compare to the external temperature? Does the rooftop garden house get as hot inside as the traditional roof house?
8. When you are done recording your temperatures, turn off the heat lamp. This is as if the sun has set for the day.
9. After 15 minutes, record the temperatures using the same technique as in step 3. Then wait an additional 15 minutes and make a second temperature recording. Your lab notebook data table for Trial 1 should now look similar to the one below. How quickly do the house boxes cool? Do the rooftop garden house and the traditional roof house cool at the same rate?
10. Before drawing conclusions from their data, scientists make sure their experiments are reproducible. Repeat steps 1-9 two more times for a total of three experimental trials.

	Starting Temperature (°F)	Heated Temperature (°F)	1st Cooling Temperature (°F)	2nd Cooling Temperature (°F)
External
Internal of Rooftop Garden House
Internal of Traditional House

Analyzing Your Data

1. Make a line graph for each trial showing the progression of temperature from starting, to heating, to cooling for each of the shoebox houses. You should end up with three graphs, each with two lines (one for each shoebox house) consisting of four data points (temperature readings). You can make the graphs by hand or use a website like Create a Graph to make graphs on the computer and print them.
2. What do your graphs show you? Do you see a consistent pattern between repeats? Did the rooftop garden change the way the box house heated up and cooled down? If you had a rooftop garden on a building, would it help conserve energy?

Variations

• You should always try your experiments in a controlled lab environment, particularly when performing a procedure like the heat lamp setup in the project above, but sometimes it is interesting and informative to see how the lab compares with the real world. Try placing your box houses outside in a sunny location on a hot day. Take temperature measurements over the course of the day until after sunset. How do the lab results compare to the real-world results?
• Do all rooftop gardens perform the same? Try growing your own rooftop gardens for your box houses. You can explore many variables, like what kinds of plants work best and whether soil depth alters the temperature results. Remember to only change one variable at a time!
• For another science fair project idea that explores how minor changes in a building can result in large heating differences, try this Science Buddies project: Can the Color of Your House Reduce Your Energy Bill.

• For more science project ideas in this area of science, see Environmental Engineering Project Ideas.

Credits

Sandra Slutz, PhD, Science Buddies

Last edit date: 2008-05-12 12:00:00

Career Focus

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring careers in Environmental Engineering.

	Environmental Engineer Environmental engineers plan projects around their city or state—like municipal water systems, landfills, recycling centers, or sanitation facilities—that are essential to the health of the people who live there. Environmental engineers also work to minimize the impact of human developments, like new roads or dams, on environments and habitats, and they strive to improve the quality of our air, land, and water.			Environmental Engineering Technician Smog, car emissions, industry waste—unfortunately, pollution is a reality that humans have to deal with. However, we can all breathe a little easier with environmental engineering technicians on the job. These people test our water, air, and soil to help us find ways to lessen the impact of pollution.
	Occupational Health and Safety Specialists Many people work in environments that have obvious potential dangers, like collapses in mines, chemicals in laboratories, or machinery in factories, but there can be hazards in almost any job, like repetitive stress injuries from constant computer use or from scanning groceries. Occupational health and safety specialists identify potential hazards in a job, and then figure out ways to reduce the risks of accidents or injuries to workers or to the public. They also investigate accidents when they do happen, writing reports that detail the causes, and making recommendations to prevent future mishaps. Their motto is “safety on the job is no accident.”			Energy Engineer How much energy do you think all the houses and buildings in the United States consume? It turns out they eat up 40% of all the energy that the US uses in a year. The figure is high because all those houses and buildings need to be heated, cooled, lit, ventilated, and supplied with heated water and electricity to run all sorts of electrical devices, appliances, and computers. Energy efficiency engineers help reduce the energy that houses and buildings use. This saves families and businesses money, and lowers the emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

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