EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN URBAN STREAM CORRIDORS

Urban stream environments provide problem-based learning opportunities for k-16 students and enable mutually beneficial university-community partnerships. Urban stream reaches suffer from contaminated sediments, degraded water quality, and lost or compromised habitat, conditions exacerbated by runoff from impervious surfaces and by urban infrastructure, including lowhead dams and combined sewer overflows (CSOs). In addition, structural controls on these systems for flood control constrain stream dynamics and restrict or eliminate access to adjacent floodplains. Removal of dams, elimination of CSO’s, and repurposing urban stream corridors for recreational purposes provide problem-based opportunities for K-16 students that can range from basic data collection and analysis to input related to engineering design. The Buck Creek Educational Corridor, 9-km reach of Buck Creek and its tributary Beaver Creek in Springfield, OH, is instrumented with four water quality sondes, two stream stage recorders, and a weather station. It was created based on diverse but interdependent interests in the river corridor between the university and several private and public entities. In addition to using it to assess changes in stream quality resulting from dam modifications, the instrumentation provides foundational data for problem-based activities in the river corridor. The purpose of problem-based activities is not necessarily to solve problems but rather to create a focus for learning. Problem triggers, experiences designed to develop questions of interest, include fieldtrips, public meetings, or real-time phenomena captured by the network of instruments. The experiences are generally not scripted but involve methodology and protocols applicable to a variety of environmental problems, making the experience of data collection, analysis, and discussion research-like and transferrable. Course assessment suggests that the learning benefits of this approach are consistent with those of undergraduate research experiences. Data collected and analyzed on the river corridor and ideas generated through the problem-based activities have been applied to channel design associated with lowhead dam modifications and engineering a change in the hydrodynamics of a riparian wetland.