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Earth Day Recap

This month, ASCE celebrated Earth Day with the rest of Dallas out at Fair Park as part of the EarthX Event.  You may have noticed the billboards around town.  This was a big deal! ASCE was there inspiring the next generation to use civil engineering to cherish and preserve our environment. In honor of Earth Day, our activity used a crumpled piece of paper to simulate real world terrain which we then then sprayed with water to create a model watershed. This is a great activity that encourages kids to think critically about the importance of elevation maps, stormwater planning and their impacts on the environment. Before making it rain on their terrain, some of the kids took the time to trace the peaks and valleys of their watershed with blue markers.  It was really neat to see their faces light up as the water picked up some of the ink and then ran “blue” down their rivers. If you’re interested in volunteering at events like this one, feel free to contact us at [email protected] to learn how you can best get involved.

Figure 1: Paulina Cristoforo (Walter P. Moore) and Jose Puente set up and ready to inspire some kids!

Figure 2: Two young engineers seeing their watershed work for the first time.