Bruce Lenore, a teacher at Smithfield High School, holds up a scale model of the Dan Malo Greenhouse outside Smithfield High School. The greenhouse is named for Dan Malo, inset, who died in a car accident.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

SMITHFIELD

Smithfield High School is about to acquire its own greenhouse effect.

Teachers Bruce Lenore and Holly Martin are spearheading a project to build a greenhouse adjacent to the school that will use the latest technologies and provide experimental facilities for a number of academic disciplines.

The project was made possible by a $15,000 contribution from David and Kate Malo, whose son, Dan, 16, died in a car accident in Johnston in July 1998. Young Malo had been a student at the high school and would have entered his junior year that fall.

The School Committee on Tuesday voted to chip in $5,000 that Schools Supt. Robert M. O’Brien said was left over from a recent high school renovation project.

The Malos have contributed money each year in their son’s name for a scholarship for deserving students.

“This is why the greenhouse is going to be so great,” Lenore said. “Kids were asking me, ‘Who is Dan Malo?’ Now they are going to learn. This will keep his memory alive.”

Dan was an “avid golfer,” Lenore said, and to honor that the greenhouse will be topped with a weathervane that is a silhouette of a golfer.

In remarks to the School Committee and in a later interview, Lenore, whose daughter graduated in Dan Malo’s class, said the greenhouse will have a southern exposure and will be attached to the gymnasium for security reasons.

It will have solar panels on top “for the smallest possible carbon footprint,” Lenore said. “We plan to give power back to the grid.”

Vegetables grown in the 24- by 36-foot greenhouse will be donated to the Rhode Island Food Bank. The greenhouse will use rainwater gathered in barrels that are painted black to retain the heat of the sun. Items from the school trash will be used for fertilizer.

“We will teach students how to use all these new technologies,” Lenore said. “There is a lot of potential here.”

He said no chemicals will be used. “It’s going to be completely organic,” he said.

Lenore said the next step is to examine possible designs during the summer. “I would love to have it up and running next spring,” he said.

tmorgan@projo.com