Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
EXAMPLE OF A PROJECT
Students perform a series of assignments that mirror what would be done in a restora-
tion nursery to produce a crop. In fact, they do produce a crop of container plants that
is held in the nursery for other classes to use in restoration installations. Seeds or cut-
tings are collected in the wild; to augment the selection, seeds are purchased from na-
tive seed collectors. Seeds and fruits are processed, treated for dormancy, and stored or
planted. Part of this process involves library and online research for horticultural in-
formation about native plant propagation. Treated seeds are planted in nursery flats
and germinated, then placed into small containers. Containers are placed in a drip ir-
rigation nursery area. Students learn to maintain hoop houses and container crops in
them. They set up drip irrigation systems and program timers. They maintain wet
beds and capillary beds and use them to increase wetland plants. Plant material initi-
ated by previous classes is upsized and made ready for transport into the field.
Restoration Design
The restoration design course allows students to work in teams and gives students the
opportunity to go through the design experience that is inherent in the Capstone
class, with the difference being that there are nine different projects presented to the
class teams, and each team must wrestle with a design problem each week for nine
weeks. This course is organized by disturbance types, so that there are case studies and
design projects that deal with restoration of agricultural and forestry land, of brown-
fields, and of landscapes compromised by transportation corridors, recreation, and
water storage. In addition we present design problems in urban areas, and in freshwa-
ter and coastal wetlands modified by dredging or filling. The restoration design course
uses a formal design structure to break down the solution of restoration problems into
a hierarchy of functional requirements, constraints, and design parameters. It further
adds elements of project management, looking at the sequencing and timing of tasks
and the identification of the critical path of tasks that control the duration and poten-
tially the cost of projects.
EXAMPLE OF A PROJECT
The restoration design course does not have an actual field component, but we use all
available site information for real sites and require students to create design solutions
for restoration problems that they are presented. The class is divided into groups of
about six students, and after the first week, each group stays together to produce a de-
sign document each week. The draft document is returned with comments, then the
group revises all draft plans to produce a portfolio of designs at the end of the course.
There are many Internet sources available that provide reasonably current aerial
mapping, at a good resolution, of much of the landscape we use for class projects.
Ground-level images are also becoming more common on the web. Environmental
