White Out Climate Change

People on top of a white roof
New York City
Hurricane
Cars in the city

Who created the project? Mena Bebawy (Me)

What inspired you to create this project? I wanted to create a practical environmental solution to a problem in NYC that everyone can actually participate in. I found that white roofs were an efficient, cheap, and easy solution and wanted to see them being implemented much more to curb climate change.

What does your project actually do? It spreads awareness on white roofs since many people do not have an idea about what it is, to begin with. It showcases how effective they are. It also offers the user 3 possible practical solutions that they can follow to implement white roofs.

How did you build your project? First, I did research on environmental issues that specifically affect New York City. I found that climate change affects cities more than any other part of the world due to specific properties that cities have such as tall and dense buildings as well as overpopulation. I then tried to find an easy and effective solution that people can actually be part of. I found white roofs as my solution. From there, I decided to create a website to spread awareness on white roofs since many people did not know about it. I also created a petition and researched organizations that can help. I created a template using bootstrap and used Qoom to build the rest of the site and filled it with the content, solutions, and the organizations that can help.

What challenges did you face? One challenge that I faced was finding teammates to work with. I found a group, but they eventually gave up last minute. I decided I would do this on my own and researched website templates to help me get the project done efficiently with a basic layout. I completed the project on my own.

What accomplishments are you proud of? I am proud to have created this very helpful website in such a short period of time.

What did you learn? I learned that white roofs are a great solution to curb climate change. It is something that I can showcase to my Hunter College president to see if they can implement at Hunter.

What is next for your project? I would like to spread awareness on white roofs and make sure it is a solution that is truly implemented. One way to do this is through the petition on my website. I would also like to build a backend on the website to allow people to see a demo on how implementing white roofs can help NYC.