Students share data collected from nearby Paint Creek including Google maps and photos of erosion from water.
By: Ashton Alexander, Amin Campbell, Luiz Figueroa, Aawaiz Khan, Ali Mahmoud, Langston Singleton, Trenton Szymchack, Kevine Tengo, Furious Turner, and Tytianna Zowa, 11th Grade
Teacher: Paula Sizemore, Ypsilanti Community/ACTech HS, Ypsilanti
Subject: Earth Science/Environmental Science
Theme: Climate Change Resilience and Action, Stormwater and Watershed Education
Type: PowerPoint
Fantastic Luiz! I didn’t know that it was the lowest end of Paint Creek! Beth Gibbons is with the Ypsilanti Sustainability Commission. You can look at their website to check out what they do. https://www.cityofypsilanti.com/642/Sustainability-Commission
If you can’t figure out how to contact them through the website, let Ms. Sizemore know and we (SEMIS) can get you all her contact information. I’ll also forward your Gallery Posting to her. Thanks again for all of your good work! I am SO excited about your project and all that you are doing! With warm regards, Dr. Ethan Lowenstein (Director, SEMIS Coalition)
This presentation provided a great overview of impacts affecting Paint Creek, and the information presented is very informative. I am curious if you all looked at the types of soils that are within the field along the creek? The types of soils may help in understanding a concept called soil moisture, and it is closely connected to how prone an area may flood from a rain event. The more moisture in the soil leads to more chances that it cannot soak up the excess rainfall, and this situation can lead to more flooding in a certain area.
This project can be the start of a larger study if you all want to continue doing this work. I am sure some personnel from the Huron River Watershed Council and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) would be interested in your work, and they may help answer some of the questions presented at the end of the presentation. Again, great job, and thanks for the work.
This presentation provided a great overview of impacts affecting Paint Creek, and the information presented is very informative. I am curious if you all looked at the types of soils that are within the field along the creek? The types of soils may help in understanding a concept called soil moisture, and it is closely connected to how prone an area may flood from a rain event. The more moisture in the soil leads to more chances that it cannot soak up the excess rainfall, and this situation can lead to more flooding in a certain area.
This project can be the start of a larger study if you all want to continue doing this work. I am sure some personnel from the Huron River Watershed Council and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) would be interested in your work, and they may help answer some of the questions presented at the end of the presentation. Again, great job, and thanks for the work.
I really like how you emphasized both the constructive and destructive nature of our waterways. Streams and rivers are important habitats for plants and animals, but water is a powerful force and humans often forget that! When we make changes to waterways in our communities we can create problems (erosion, etc.) like the ones you saw. I wonder if there are ways of restoring Paint Creek to its natural path? What would that look like? Great work!
The flooding of the YCS fields are caused by human interaction because humans are the ones that put the creek into the ground and built over it.
We want everyone to know about it but to make a big change we’d have to inform the public more so they can take action. We’re stronger together.
WOW! I learned SO MUCH from your research and from the way that you communicated your project findings. Thank you!
One question I am wondering about is how climate change has impacted the amount of rainfall that Washtenaw County is experiencing right now? Are the problems you mention new problems? Have they increased as an impact of climate change? It might be interesting to contact Beth Gibbons at the Ypsilanti Sustainability Commission to see if they have any data on this? I also wonder about doing a presentation to the Commission about your project. I’m sure they would find it very informative! Thanks for being the leaders we need right now! So appreciate you and all that you are doing for the community!!!
The flooding of the YCS fields are caused by human interaction because humans are the ones that put the creek into the ground and built over it.
We want everyone to know about it but to make a big change we’d have to inform the public more so they can take action. We’re stronger together.
We will contact Ms. Gibbons at Washtenaw Water Resource Commission to get data to continue our research,. We want information on how the rain in Washtenaw County is impacting us. Ypsilanti is at the lowest end of Paint Creek. We need to find out if our location is causing water flows to increase.
Fantastic Luiz! I didn’t know that it was the lowest end of Paint Creek! Beth Gibbons is with the Ypsilanti Sustainability Commission. You can look at their website to check out what they do. https://www.cityofypsilanti.com/642/Sustainability-Commission
If you can’t figure out how to contact them through the website, let Ms. Sizemore know and we (SEMIS) can get you all her contact information. I’ll also forward your Gallery Posting to her.
Thank you so much for your presentation! I noticed that you mentioned a rain garden. I don’t know much about them, but it sounds like the purpose is to pull water to the rain garden and away from the surrounding area? I’m wondering why the rain garden isn’t having this effect?
It’s so interesting to learn about the creek and how it may be affecting the area and soccer field!
We learned that the rain garden needs more maintenance. Some of the dead plants have clogged it up. We also need to weed it out and add more plants. The first 2 – 3 years is important to get the rain garden plants really established. We need to do that this year.
Our rain garden isn’t having the right effect because it needs to be modified. It has lot dead plants and some weeds blocking it up. We went and looked at the other rain garden at the Estabrook Elementary school. It has a lot of dead plants and weeds in it too. When we clean up the dead plants, we will plant some more new plants in there. This should help it do the job again. Another way to help the rain garden is to make all of them bigger.
This is so informative! Students in my class started working on the issue of the flooding soccer field years ago by planting trees around the campus, but we never knew that Paint Creek had been buried behind the school.
I have some of the same questions as you. Who buried Paint Creek? Why would they do that?
I’m wondering if the part of the creek near the apartments (the ones you have pictures of) is upstream or downstream from our school. If it’s downstream I’m wondering if the fact that it is in a 10 inch pipe has anything to do with the destructive erosion that is happening there.
Thank you for all this hard work