Chapman Vice President, LEED® AP John Ferreira, regularly mentors our junior staff as part of his role here at Chapman, but when he was asked present to a slightly younger crew—3rd and 4th grade girls to be exact—he was surprised but excited by the opportunity to foster the young group’s interest in green building.

The five girls, ages eight and nine, are members of Girl Scout Interest Group #13080 located in Nashua, NH and are in a competition offered by FIRST, a national organization that encourages children to explore science and technology and promotes self-confidence, leadership, and life skills. Their challenge is to a choose a building in their community to evaluate its energy use and find experts to help them in proposing solutions to reduce consumption or move toward alternative energy use.

John spent a Sunday afternoon talking to the group about green building products and solutions, and then the following day accompanied them on a tour of their chosen local facility. They toured the Pheasant Lane Mall with the mall’s Operations Manager, Alan Couture and the troop’s Interest Advisor, Elizabeth “Liza” Blondeau. Liza was grateful for John’s ability to disseminate the information, present it in a manner that the girls could comprehend, and provide real-world applications of green building concepts. “[John] had just told them about the importance of an insulated white roof the day before—something that we had not heard of anywhere on our online research,” she explains. “The girls were so excited when the Mall Operations Manager took them up to see the mall’s white roof and they all knew why that was important for energy conservation.”

The group will attend a qualifying event on either November 10th or 17th and at that time hopefully be offered the opportunity to attend the state event in early December.

published 10.23.2007