Sandy Springs creeks get Kennesaw State University study
KENNESAW, Ga.
(Aug 8, 2012) — NeighborNewspapers.com
by Noreen Lewis Cochran
The city of Sandy Springs and the Watershed Alliance of Sandy Springs may hold Creek 101 workshops for homeowners with streams in their backyards as a result of the alliance's summer school program with Kennesaw State University.
About 25 students under the guidance of professors Mark Patterson and Nancy Pullen delivered the results of their June studies of Marsh and Long Island creeks for their Geography 4100 watershed assessment and analysis class last week at the North Fulton Government Annex.
Attending the presentation were city Director of Community Development Angela Parker and Arborist Michael Barnett and Allyson Read, a biologist at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Sandy Springs.
"This class shows people that community engagement is not just reaching out to important organizations in the community but this is actually a class in which we take stuff we talked about and we make it real," Patterson said. "You actually get dirt underneath your fingernails and you're able to apply everything that you’ve learned in an academic setting to a real-world setting and it helps a community group."
The students fanned out in teams to 18 sites, observing the environments, conducting a fish census, collecting water samples and analyzing them for chemical profiles.
