Students Study Guichon Creek

When Jennie Moore, Director of Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship, made a presentation in Martin Bollo’s Civil Engineering class she inspired several students to tackle a nearby real world problem for their capstone project. Jennie Moore spoke about sustainability and suggested some civil engineering challenges right here on campus that students could study. One team of five students was inspired to look at the challenges of daylighting the underground portion on Guichon Creek on the North side of the BCIT campus.

The Civil Engineering students are excited to be working on a project that will be useful to the BCIT community, and one that will be initiated in the near future. They are looking at the feasibility of two alternate stream routes across campus. They will look at storm water management, infrastructure re-alignment, vehicular access, campus rainwater runoff discharge characteristics, engineering and constructions costs, and potential gains in fish habitat. The Civil Engineering team is working with two students from BCIT’s Ecological Restoration program, as part of their capstone projects, who are providing ecological and fish passage requirements for daylighting a creek and how to increase streamside biodiversity.  Dr. Ken Ashley, Director of the BCIT Rivers Institute, is acting as the project sponsor, and meets bi-weekly with the interdisciplinary student teams, just as if this was a real world consulting assignment with specific project timelines and deliverables.  The students appreciate that this isn’t an assignment with one right answer, but a real world challenge where they work across disciplines and try to come up with the best solution to a complex problem. Their capstone project will be presented in April in both Civil Engineering and Ecological Restoration student sessions.

To learn more about what BCIT’s Campus Development is doing to improve Guichon Creek:

• List of various projects (completed and in progress)
• Article on recent work
• Article citing future study
• Factor Four post on Guichon Creek