Course Description

Making change takes time. The Center for Economic and Environmental Development begins projects that often take years and thousands of hours to reach fruition. The project we are about to embark upon is surely one of those kinds of projects.

Mill Run is a small stream whose headwaters begin as an outflow from Tamarak Lake, east of Meadville. It flows past the Meadville Area Recreation Complex, East End Elementary School, and arrives in town on North Street near the Meadville Medical Center. For the next two kilometers or so, as it moves through the city of Meadville, it is largely confined, with a couple of notable exceptions, to a culvert beneath the city's streets.

The goal of this Junior Seminar is to prepare a feasibility study for daylighting Mill Run.

• What would it take to restore Mill Run to public view?
• Where are the first places it should be daylighted?
• Which stretches of the river will have to wait until later?
• How much will it cost?
• Where will the money come from?
• What is the level of public support for a project that could take decades to complete?
• What economic and social benefits would be expected to accrue from such a project?
• What should the banks of the newly resurfaced stream look like?

This Junior Seminar will proceed as if you are a consulting group. You will be assigned research tasks and be expected to search through the literature, the web, and the community for solutions to the problems you have chosen to work on. The audience for the papers you will be writing, and designs you will be preparing, in addition to me, will include the

• Mayor of Meadville,
• Meadville's City Council,
• its city manager,
• its historian,
• members of the Meadville Redevelopment Authority,
• the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
• several business owners, and ultimately
• thousands of residents in and visitors to downtown Meadville

Top

Top

Criteria for a Good Report

(generated by students listed above.)

1. Facts supported by lots of high quality references.
2. Clear synthesis of information.
3. Multiple persepctives: be sure to analyze several angles of each problem.
4. Look at other case studies that are similar to what you are doing.
5. Well organized.
6. As concise as possible.
7. Supply visuals to support design work or data gathering.
8. Proof read. Write clearly.
9. Explain technical terms.
10. Make it interesting.
11. Give options where appropriate.
12. Be positive. Don't list all the things that went wrong with your research.
13. Prepare more than one draft.

Top

Schedule

All reports to be prepared as both written and graphical (or PowerPoint) format. You will also present your data for feedback and critique to the rest of the group. Deadlines may be adjusted as the semester proceeds.

Deadlines for Mill Run Reports

First draft completed by February 24

Second draft completed by April 8

Third draft completed by April 29

Deadlines for Senior Comp Proposals

• Begin by reviewing the Department Guidelines on the ES Web page.
• Choose less than or equal to three comp questions AND review two comps done by ES students by February 18
• Comp Proposal, First Draft of Introduction and Methods completed by March 14. This includes:
  
  • Introduction and literature review of at least 15 references
  • Methods
  • Timetable
    
  • Expected results
    
  • Review of two earlier comps
• Comp proposal, Second Draft completed by April 22.
• Presentation of Comps will take place in March and April.

Due Dates subject to change.

Top

Grades will be based on class participation, i.e., the quality and intensity of your critique of other's presentations (20%), your report (60%), Comp first draft, Comp second draft (10% each).