Saturday, January 24, 2009

Senior Project Ideas (2010 Cohort)

Hi all--

In class on Friday we discussed ideas for our River Steward Senior Project. None of this is set in stone, but I volunteered to write a summary of our collective thoughts so Franz and Katie could see them and contribute, (as well as others if you would like)! Here it goes:

The first topic which came up is whether or not this would be an individual endeavor or not... and after we sort of decided, well, not...then this came up: The heavily awaited, much anticipated Great Miami River Corridor Canoe/Kayak/Camp Trip! We thought we could turn this trip which we have always talked about into our project by bringing out particular skill sets together to record, experience, plan, etc. to create some sort of presentation to show our community (perhaps at the River Summit? Our River Stewards Graduation?). This would be somewhat of a glorified documentary of all of the aspects of the GMR corridor we could get our hand on and minds around. For example, maybe we could do some biological testing along the way, photography, video taping, local school kid experiences, business planning, engineering ideas, networking, FUN, etc. Some aspects we have to initially worry about are feasibility and safety. Some of us will need to become Kayak certified instructors/have some sort of water safety certification. We were thinking that perhaps this summer some of us could work on doing this. Karen will be contacting Amy Dingle from FRO and Tracey will be contacting Dusty from MVCD to gather their thoughts and advice. Maggie will be talking to her roommate who is on SGA; she previously mentioned to her the possibility of $1,000 grant which we could apply for if we had a project. Maggie will be inviting her to our class next Friday to speak to us. Drew will be looking at maps, possible start and stop points, camping locations, and come up with a rough estimate of how long this might take us. Sam will go to the LTC to see if they would lend us video equipment to take along (we won't mention the water at first...). Jessie will be at the Rec working on her kayaking muscles so we can all hook up to her boat when we are dog tired and she will paddle us home!

As a side note, Drew's thesis involves using the GMR for geothermal energy and working closely with Dusty (correct me if that's wrong Drew!) So he will probably be using this as his Senior project (two birds, one stone deal) but he, of course, wants to River Trip with us anyway!

Another thing we hope to create from the trip is a Green Map of our Corridor. This can have a lot of things on it, like good places to eat, site to see, good places to fish, etc. Katie, Emily, Tim and I were first introduced to this idea this summer on our adventure to Columbus. Click here to see their map. To see the Green Map Home Page, Click there.

Okay, that's all for now, post new ideas/suggestions/comments/concerns!
River love to all! I'm so excited for this!

Liz

3 comments:

  1. Hey Stews,
    This sounds great. Keep me up to date on what we need to do and when this might go down.
    Thanks and stew LOVE!
    Cherrio,
    Chuck

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  2. i must say, this sounds like a great idea.

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  3. Hi all,

    I just wanted to let you all know that I ran into Susan B. on Friday after our meeting, and I asked about the possibility of displaying our Senior project at Art Street next year. She felt that she could definitely squeeze us in (I know we thought we were thinking ahead by asking her now--wow!) but she also suggested that we might want to display it down town. Cool, huh? I didn't ask about money, but I just told her that I wanted to make sure that we were on her radar! She was really excited about our ideas, and just told me to make sure that we keep her in the loop, especially when we had something a little more concrete together.

    Also, she told me that the big NPR radio station in town was looking to do a piece on the river--and Susan wants to make sure we know about/are thinking about this as well. She thinks that this would be a great way for us to publicize ourselves, and maybe do something more with Katie's River Sounds recording/recordings we will gather for our senior project river trip!

    Awesome, have a Happy Sunday -- I am so excited thinking about the moments we share together, and what we can do together as the undergraduate chapter comes to a close,

    River Love,
    Liz

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