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Urban learning laboratory features four educational, monitored green roofs

Proceedings article published in 2012 by Ryan Mooney-Bullock, Ishi Buffam, Michael Bolan
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Question mark in circle
Preprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Postprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Published version: policy unknown

Abstract

The Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati " s Green Learning Station is home to an accessible flat roof comparing extensive, bio-tray and intensive vegetated roof systems and the city " s first sloped green roof. The intensive roof section is a vegetable garden producing food year-round. Monitors embedded in the soil and downspouts measure soil moisture and temperature, runoff volume and rate. Additional data is being collected to compare runoff water quality between the green roofs and their traditional counterparts. The Green Learning Station roof is open to the public (accessible via a prominent staircase) with signage explaining the systems and their benefits. Tours are given regularly to secondary science classes, college courses, the general public and building and design professionals. A self-guided tour uses QR codes linked to videos to prompt visitors to interact with the site. The project is an example of a successful collaboration between a non-profit (Civic Garden Center), the private sector (in-kind donors Tremco Incorporated, Urbanalta, Green City Resources, Melink) and the public sector (University of Cincinnati professors and students, Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, Cincinnati Park Board and US EPA). In 2007, the Civic Garden Center (CGC) began dreaming about how it might convert its storage building, a former gas station, into a demonstration site for sustainable landscape practices, including a wide variety of green infrastructure for stormwater management. Since 1942 the organization had been educating Cincinnatians about best practices for urban gardening, which had long included environmentally safe methods of pest and weed control and responsible