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Civil Engineering HS Career Day - 2014

2014 ASCE career day 1.jpg

Under the sponsorship of the ASCE Central Ohio Section, the 2014 High School Civil Engineering Career Day took place on Thursday, April 24. Beth Meek (S&ME), Emily Wieringa (Columbus Zoo) and Carolyn Merry (OSU) organized the event. A welcome reception was held at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering at The Ohio State University.

Three tours were conducted that related to different aspects of civil engineering. The first tour in the morning session was of the new Zoombezi Bay Baboon Lagoon – a $4.5M project – at the Columbus Zoo led by Emily Wieringa. This is a new multi-level play structure with pools.

The second tour of the morning was of the Emerald Parkway extension between Sawmill Rd and Riverside Drive. Ken Richardson (City of Dublin) and Igel representatives gave an overview of the $8M project. The group traveled to lunch at the OSU 4-H Center, where they were joined by three OSU students. Carolyn Merry gave a talk about the civil engineering program at OSU and Deb McAvoy gave a talk about the civil engineering program at Ohio University.

The tour in the afternoon session was of the Scioto Greenway Project showing the downtown Main Street Dam removal – a $35.5M project– that was led by Nell Selander (Columbus Downtown Development Corporation), Bryon Ringley (Stantec), and Jeff Ruschau (Messer). There were 18 high school students participating in the program, representing St. Francis DeSales, Olentangy Liberty, Westerville South, Whitehall Yearling, Hilliard Davidson, and Columbus Alternative. Each student received a hard hat and a pair of safety glasses as a memento of the event. As the day went on, the students were asking more and more questions, so we could tell that they had been listening throughout the day. We may have a few future civil engineers from this group of juniors!