Americorps Water Quality Volunteers based in Knoxville, TN contacted Living Roofs, Inc. to help install a small green roof on a storage shed at the University of Tennessee in the spring of 2009. The storage shed was being built by Karns High School (KHS). Each year, the KHS Wood Shop builds a backyard shed and sells it to raise money for their class. The University of Tennessee (UTK) Agriculture Department purchased this shed for a small demonstration area on the UTK Campus.

“The bigger picture is how this shed/green roof fits into the Low Impact Development Demonstration Area designed by Curtis Stewart for the University of Tennessee Agriculture Campus. The LIDDA is intended to be a hands-on research/demonstration/information area for the public, specifically homeowners and university students. It will become part of the Tennessee Yards and Neighborhood program, where homeowners can come and see LID concepts and techniques in action and pick up information guiding them to other extension and web site information. Plant Sciences design and construction students will be using and improving the LIDDA thru their classes and projects. They will see the immediate impacts of landscape design in the landscape on a scale that is manageable and understandable while also directly contributing to the knowledge base of the community of homeowners.

“The greenroof research will include water quality, stormwater retention, plant survivability for East Tennessee greenroofs. The intent there is to create a link between Plant Sciences researchers and high school science classes so we can begin teaching high schoolers how to do scientific research – A great recruiting tool for our programs,” (The University of Tennessee Department of Plant Sciences, 2009).

We loved being a part of this project and enjoyed the help of the entire class during installation. Everyone involved was a HUGE help and we all learned some valuable lessons in team work.