This semester, I took at design class called EEE 495: Urban Water Projects. The goal of this class is to generate transdisciplinary knowledge through innovative campus-community projects. There are about 16 of us in the class, and we were all broken up into project teams and assigned community partners who we would work with to design solutions to storm water runoff. Storm water runoff is when precipitation (like snow and rain) that runs off the land. In a natural setting, storm water runoff will drain into local water bodies; in a developed area, like a town or city, the storm water runoff will runoff on impervious surfaces (streets, rooftops, parking) and is therefore unable to infiltrate into the ground and back into the natural hydrological cycle. When storm water hits impervious surfaces, it will runoff into drainage ditches, storm drains, and sewer systems, picking up pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorous and sediment. After this, the storm water will be discharged to the nearest water body, along with all of the pollutants it picked up. For us this is Wabash!
For my project team and I, our community partner was the Christ United Methodist Church (CUMC) and we implemented a bioswale and several native savannas. A bioswale is a vegetated ditch that is made up of plants native to the local area and very water tolerant. It has storm water filter through it and then return to the natural hydrological cycle instead of just going onto impervious pavements and out into the Wabash. Native savannas are beneficial because they are made up of plants native to the area and therefore require low maintenance since they are meant to survive in the area. In addition, they can attract local biodiversity, like butterflies and humming birds. We just implemented our project, which was super exciting! It took a lot of work to get there though, and we were really exposed to the engineering design process through all our work. We had to communicate and talk a lot with CUMC in order to figure out exactly what they wanted, we had to learn what a bioswale and native savannas actually were and how to build/plant one, how to budget (we had a team budget of $20,000 from a grant from the EPA), order all the plants, make a maintenance plan, and plan the day of installation. Installation was a pretty big ordeal, as we had to plan out the whole day and manage all of our actual volunteers. We ended up having about 60 volunteers who came to help us plant all of our plants, and we planted about 2,700 plants total. While this class was a lot of work, it was really fulfilling and I am truly able to see the impact that my project will have. I am so proud of my group and I for all the hard work we put into this project
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One of the native savannas
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| Another native savannah |
Design classes like EEE 495 are a great way to get engineering experience while in college. I definitely plan on putting this class on my resume and talking to future employers about it. In addition, these sort of classes really teach you how to work in a team and how to actually implement the engineering design process in a project. Also, service based projects, like the one I did in EEE 495, are very fulfilling and easy to see the impacts of. You can even do these sort of projects as a freshmen! Engineering Projects in the Community (EPICs) is an excellent way for a freshmen to get this sort of experience. For more information about EPICs, go to this link:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/EPICS/purdue/epics-purdue |
| The Bioswale! |
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