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Virginia Wesleyan College has received a $10,000 grant to develop a green roof project for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet) competition.
EPA awarded P3 grants to student teams representing 41 
universities in 21 states. Virginia Wesleyan is one of two private colleges to receive the grant. Other recipients include Duke University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University and the University of Virginia.
The P3 Awards challenge students to respond to the scientific and technical needs of the developed and developing world in moving toward sustainability through research and development. Challenges to sustainability in a wide range of categories were considered for this competition, including water, energy, agriculture, ecosystems, the built environment, materials and chemicals and information technology.
The Virginia Wesleyan team, along with faculty advisors Dr. Margaret Reese, Dr. Elizabeth Malcolm and Dr. Maynard Schaus, is focusing on “Moving toward a sustainable campus: design of a green roof monitoring experiment.” With the College currently in the design phase for construction of a LEED®-certified science building to be built in 2009, the faculty has identified the new building as an opportunity for students to learn about sustainable design and to contribute to the building plans. The group’s aim is to reduce the impact on stormwater runoff, water pollution, energy use, global climate change and urban heat island effects. Additionally, students are challenged to maintain and upgrade the older buildings on campus with comparable goals.
One method to minimize the environmental impact of buildings 
is to install living green roofs. In such a project, students are in the process of monitoring a green-roof experiment located in front of Hofheimer Library in which students conduct a preliminary micro scale study of drainage treatments, plant species and stormwater runoff.
"The students have really enjoyed working on it and working on a real problem in which the results that they find are going to have a real application," said Malcolm. " I think it’s a good experience for the students because they are learning real research techniques that they can apply after they leave here, either in graduate school or in a career."
The team will compete for EPA’s P3 Award in Washington, D.C. in May 2006.
For more information about P3, visit www.epa.gov/P3.
Or, for more news and events at Virginia Wesleyan College, visit http://www.vwc.edu/news_events/.