Students Partner with Taylor Elementary to Design New Irrigation System

Lee's engineering department is partnering with 5th grade students at Taylor Elementary School to design an automatic watering system for their community garden.

Taylor Elementary School, a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) designated school, has a community garden in raised beds with no irrigation system. When manually watering the garden became an issue, the 5th grade students started a project to design an automatic watering system and asked Lee's senior engineering students to aid them in this process.

"Taylor Elementary is thrilled for the collaboration with Lee University because it offers numerous opportunities for my students to explore STEM careers while interacting with college students pursuing their degrees," said Miranda Avdyukov, the 5th grade math and science teacher at Taylor Elementary. "This project has sparked a newfound interest in my students for improving their community, while also fostering creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to address real-world issues. We are incredibly grateful for this partnership and the positive impact it will have on our school through this collaborative effort."

The engineering students met with the Taylor students to discuss what ideas they had for the watering system before starting to sketch designs to find the best engineering solution. Part of this process also included taking measurements of the garden to accurately map out these designs.

According to Dr. Marcie Williams, assistant professor of engineering, the engineering students have thought heavily on the conservation of water to make sure that the final design is both eco-friendly and doable at Taylor Elementary.

"This project has been an extraordinary opportunity for both the school and the engineering team working to bring it to life," said Carson Sears, one of the senior engineering students working on this project. "Through our research and development of the watering system, we've gained valuable insights into real-world engineering design principles. We believe this project will ultimately have a positive impact through providing new learning opportunities for students and preparing our team for future careers in engineering."

The project began this August, and the students will work through March 2025 before presenting their automatic watering system in April 2025.

"In thinking about design projects, I really wanted to focus on designs that involved and served the community," said Williams. "My goal was to combine Lee's core values of service with our engineering project, and I think the students are very excited to have such a meaningful project that is useful for the elementary school."

Anyone interested in partnering with Lee's engineering department on future design projects, contact Williams at [email protected].

For more information about Lee's engineering department, visit academics/arts-sciences/mathematical-sciences/engineering-science/.