The Dutchess County EMC is partnering with HVEA Engineers and Peach Hill Park to run the pilot program of the Young Engineers Empowerment Program, where high school students learn valuable STEM skills while they design and build a new rain garden for stormwater management at Peach Hill Park.

Day 1 – Students learned how to fly drones, create topographic maps & to delineate watersheds.

Day 2 – Students created watershed models & learned how water flows.

Day 3 – Students learned about soil types and other geotechnical concepts from HVEA’s geotechnical engineer in preparation for exploratory subsurface investigations for their rain garden design. Students performed percolation tests and determined what kind of underlying soils were present and what infiltration rates to expect to detail their design further.

Day 4 – Students learned about landscape architecture from a Licensed Landscape Architect and choosing native plantings with optimal pollutant removal benefits for the rain garden design.

Day 5 –  Students learned about protecting various resources during construction & finalized their rain garden designs. Students developed an “engineer’s estimate” of materials they will need for construction in the Spring.

There will be 5 more sessions in the spring.  In April, the students will work on the construction of the rain garden and learn valuable skills through our construction management program.

HVEA Engineers: https://hveapc.com/

Peach Hill Park: https://peachhillpark.org/