In this studio, you will be challenged to address a pressing environmental issue- soil erosion!  There are many causes for the deterioration of topsoil, such as unsustainable farming practices, weather phenomena, and heavy rainfall. The consequences of soil erosion can devastate animals and humans, causing poor agriculture, mudslides, and water pollution. 

Given these environmental challenges, it's time to take action! In this studio, you will become engineers, tasked with designing innovative erosion mitigation systems to test and deploy. But there’s a twist: your designs will not only protect the environment but also serve as recreational spaces!  Imagine transforming a landslide barrier into a skateboard arena or a water diversion channel into a fun parkour course. Creativity and environmental engineering will come together to improve both land retention and community activity!

Erosion Expedition Outline:

• First, students will model a landslide. The scale and materials for these models should be fairly uniform across groups. Materials– stones, sand, and soil–could be gathered from on-site.
• Next, students will study various systems of erosion mitigation, such as gabion walls, waffled ground covers, ledging strategies, and more. After studying these, students will design a hybrid or novel erosion mitigation system. They will then proceed to build scale models of their innovative erosion prevention systems. Subsequently, these models will be tested in the landslide models. Close observation and data collection should be used in determining the success of the designs. Students can then harness the knowledge they gained from the testing stage to build (and test) another - ideally improved - erosion prevention model.
• Ultimately, a most successful system, or combination of systems, will be identified by the class, and this system could then be deployed in real life on a slope one campus or at a nearby site where erosion is an issue (this site could be identified on the “Weathering Walk” ). 

Skills:

• Innovative Design 
• Sketching
• Design Principles
• Precedent Research
• Expressive Drawing
• Technical Drawing
• Prototyping
• Photography
• Mechanical Operations 
• Coding: Microbit 
• Programming: Code.org
• TinkerCad
• Laser cutting
• Oral Presentation
• Visual Presentation