Project Introduction

The NAU Teaching Greenhouse is located on north campus, near the Biological Sciences building.  The greenhouse is used to grow plants for dissection in botany labs, and is home to the NAU Botany Club.  The greenhouse is divided into two sections: the "north house" is kept warm and dry for cacti and other dry-climate plants, while the "south house" is kept cool and damp for tropical specimens such as orchids and pitcher plants.

The greenhouse is equipped with various environmental controls:

• A "wet wall" and exhaust fan to evaporatively cool and humidify the south house
• Large heaters, separately controlled for the north and south houses
• Automatic roof vents for passive cooling in the north house
• Electric heating mats for some specimens in the north house

This project is focused on installing environmental sensors to monitor air temperature, humidity, and soil moisture content.  Additionally, we plan to install automatically controlled air mixing fans, and place the wet wall and exhaust fan under computer control.