July 1st: Chicago Center for Green Technology

The Chicago Department of Environment has created a building which is energy efficient, attractive and affordable in a formerly demolition debris. Since its rehabilitation, the Center has become a model for sustainable design and technology.
The four elements are involved in the Center. Let's see how students can learn more about taking care of the environment by asking them some questions after the visit:

SUN: How do the center exploit the sun resource? Do you think that this source of energy can be used in other places? Where?

WATER: What is the function of the four cisterns? Could you save water in your house? How would you do that?

AIR: I would ask studentes to do a list of the VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds) given and say if they have it at home or not. After that, the question would be: Do you think you could reduce the quantity of VOC's in your house? How would you do that?

LAND: Land can be polluted in several ways. How the land can be polluted? What do you do to avoid or reduce contamination?

Apart from the guided tours for groups, the Center offers some seminars based on environmental issues. One of those is “Composting in the City- Successful Strategies for Schools and Communities”, which could be very useful to work with students. In this seminar they explain the ecological processes involved in creating a “hot” year-round compost pile, and they provide information about successful composting of school lunchroom waste at CPS Schools, that they could transfer to their homes, creating a net of environmental concerning.
The seminar “Soil critters are Good for your plants”, deals with the idea of billions of soil organisms working to recycle organic matter and make plant nutrients, so that students could discover how the soil foodweb works and the role these critters play in the landscapes.





Chicago Center of Green Technology