The Research, Educational and Environmental Benefits of the Indiana County Stormwater Education Partnership
Abstract
The Indiana County Stormwater Education Partnership has brought together multiple groups from throughout our community to share information and work together on stormwater issues. This partnership has allowed us to leverage both our individual and organizations' skills and resources to address water quality and quantity issues from a variety of perspectives. Specifically we have facilitated the transfer of knowledge from research to applied stormwater issues, worked together to help IUP and other organizations acquire grants for research, education, outreach, and monitoring of water within Indiana County. This partnership has provided a monthly venue for working together for the past few years and continues to grow, strengthen and allow for increased opportunities to address stormwater issues within our area.
One immediate benefit to the IUP Geoscience Department has been increased awareness by the community to ongoing research. It has brought undergraduate students out into the neighborhoods, working in partnership with citizens and government agencies to monitor, predict and help plan for mitigation of flooding issues within our local community. We have recently expanded to additional watersheds to address similar issues, but with a focus on land use changes with the construction of subdivisions. The students gain much from the practical application of their work as well as being exposed to the many people who are working on applied geoscience issues such as stormwater and learning about career pathways of which they were unaware. We are now working to expand community stewardship and education by spending time talking about stormwater issues in many more diverse venues within our community. This includes outreach events through local parks, working with community organizations on service days and many other types of events. The connection with community has benefitted our students even more than the community.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMPA21F1009F
- Keywords:
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- 0825 Teaching methods;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0855 Diversity;
- EDUCATIONDE: 4327 Resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 6630 Workforce;
- PUBLIC ISSUES