Urban Planning & Systems (Day 5)

Today we learned about how environmental engineers helped solve many issues of runoff in the Charles River in Boston by watching this Special Report.  Students were able to create their own models of green roofs within these parameters:

40 index cards
1 roll of masking tape
12 inches of foil
**Building must be at least 9 inches tall

Sphagnum moss
gravel
potting soil

They had 5 minutes to plan as a group, and only 30 minutes for construction.  Their finished building had to be able to hold 1 cup of water  = no runoff, and able to support the weight of the saturated roof.

Two out of three roofs were successful!  Congratulations!

We also brainstormed how systems interact.  Here is the list of system pairs we came up with today: