Students participate in 'Green Dream Homes'

Guam - Building a more sustainable home may soon be a reality as several of the island's youth who took part in last week's Green Dream Homes competition at the University of Guam. The Center for Island Sustainability held its first-ever competition, as energy technician Kiko Palacios says was set out to empower the youth to incorporate sustainable technologies and ideas to generate a greener community.

He explained, "We created this competition to get out of the traditional way of teaching students, so aside from teaching students with lectures and conduct research, we wanted them to have a hands-on experience with this idea, this whole green concept by building their own green dream homes."

Seven schools participated in the competition and featured nearly a dozen models and drawings. Along with promoting a more eco-friendly home, the models featured reusable materials such as wood and cardboard that each student provided a detailed report. Among the participants included Okkodo High School juniors Mayleen Benjamin and Steven Meno.

Benjamin said, "We all have the same concept of being a green eco-friendly building, but how we present it, that's what makes us different," with Meno adding, "The concept of the house is to not use lightbulbs, air conditioning and use Guam's environment, something that people come to Guam for, they want to see the sunlight, they want to see the views, that's why there's all of this."

Whether they become architects or not, Palacios hopes the students will be able to understand how and why certain sustainable procedures and techniques work and apply it not only in these projects but in their lives as well. "I'm really hoping students take the information and knowledge that they've gained from this contest and apply it to real-life situations. When they grow up, I know a lot of people want to have homes and I see a lot of the homes nowadays are very energy inefficient. So with this, we hope students will generate a more sustainable future by developing more sustainable homes," he explained.

The models and drawings will also be showcased at the 3rd Annual Island Sustainability Conference at the Hyatt on April 18-19.

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