 The Greening of Aiken project was born about 10 years ago now and the green roof piece of it very shortly afterwards became one of the components we knew we wanted to do and Given that with the School of Natural Resources We wanted to not only have a green roof But because we do a lot of research in the building we wanted to make a research component to it It's actually eight separate green roofs that are separately monitored and that allows us to change the plant types and change the soil types So that we can better learn what combinations of plants and soil do a better job of Fulfilling the good things for the green roof supply stormwater management is the major one It basically they absorb some of the water which reduces the peak flows and therefore reduces erosion going into Streams nearby and such but they also Capture some of the nutrients that we don't want going into stormwater like phosphorus and nitrogen compounds and They capture some of the contaminants that come in from both wet deposition being rain and snow But also dry deposition which is just particulate matter and aerosols that land on the roof without a green roof those just get washed into the stormwater and and Eventually make their way into Lake Champlain It's a lot of work to move the plants. They're very heavy They were two foot by four foot flats that weigh about 120 pounds and we had nearly 875 of them to move off of these palates that were brought up to the roof by a crane and So we needed help usually we had at least about 10 students But on Friday we had about 30 students up there and it was really exciting and they loved it They really loved being up there actually doing it you could tell I mean they were anxious and happy and you know Just going for it. It was fun to watch them We just finished putting it in but what we'll do now is we get to we get to learn from it We get to have students going up there seeing the value of a green roof seeing what happens when you do quality research To help answer questions we can use statistics to prove significant differences among their different treatments and provide information for Not only for students But for us as researchers that we can then pass on to people that that build green roofs and use green roofs and Pass on to the industry to help them build better green roofs