Academic Year Project Started: 2018-2019

A Review of Stakeholder Feedback and Indicator Analysis for the Maryland Environmental Justice Screening Tool

Background: A wealth of research has shown that communities of color and low-income populations have been disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards and locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) including incinerators, power plants, landfills, and other pollution- intensive facilities. Unfortunately, the State of Maryland has made little progress in constructing tools to assess and address environmental injustice […]

Harford County Bel Air Bicycle Network Study

In 2013, Harford County adopted a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan that establishes goals and priorities for improving the Countyâ€™s bicycle and pedestrian networks and connecting to key destinations throughout the County. In 2018, Harford County engaged with the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Capstone Studio at the University of Maryland to develop a more comprehensive […]

Thoughtful Interventions Brookside Gardens, Montgomery County, MD

The Brookside Gardens project focuses on three major spaces; the Visitors Center Plaza and Lawn, the Azalea Garden, and the Camellia Garden. The project focuses on thoughtful interventions for these areas that provide ADA pathways, connections between gardens, stormwater solutions, gathering spaces, and plantings.This project has been created by the students of the University of […]

Brookside Gardens Stroll for Wellness

The positive benefits of exposure to nature and green spaces related to wellness are well-documented. A structured walk in a garden or park setting, in combination with reflective journaling, has proven to be invaluable and life-changing to community members suffering from the adverse effects of stress and trauma suffering from grief, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder […]

Obstacles to Community Participation in Reporting Pest-Related Tree Damage

For our Environmental Science and Policy Capstone project at the University of Maryland, we were assigned a Montgomery County Parks project. The goals of this capstone project were to inspire and increase community involvement to report invasive insect and disease pests and to inform residents about invasive tree pests, particularly educating residents on how to […]

Susceptibility of Montgomery Park Trees to Emerging Invasive Pests

This report provides recommendations to the Montgomery County Department of Parks on the management of four invasive pests: Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis), spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), oak wilt, and thousand cankers disease in managed park regions. To prepare for these potential infestations, an analysis of the risk to current park tree populations was performed […]

All Dogs Go to Prince Georgeâ€™s County: Finding a Home for a Second Animal Services Facility

As a continuation of the Fall 2017 PALS project, Spring 2018 semester students from the community planning and engineering programs used advanced computer mapping tools (geographic information system, or GIS) to provide Prince Georgeâ€™s County with potential sites to build a second animal shelter. The team attempted to find land that the county already owned, […]

Visualizing Recreational Trails: Montgomery County, Maryland

At the request of the Montgomery County Department of Parks, eight county recreation trails were visualized via 360Â° photos and video, to help develop a state-of-the-art bike stress index tailored toward mountain bike trails. Using the Google Street View platform to publish photos online as well as several GIS open-source datasets and analytic tools, approximately […]

Prince Georgeâ€™s County Food Scraps Composting Pilot Program

This projectâ€™s goal was to construct innovative ways to promote composting through the Prince Georgeâ€™s County Composting Pilot Program, working with the Countyâ€™s project manager Denice Curry. Throughout this semester, we split the investigations into four different Design Projects. In these Design Projects, we cultivated our interviewing skills, learning how to note details and analyze […]

Capital Overlook Apartments

Considering the economics, demographics and the background of the site, the vision for its development is an affordable residential project. The area surrounding the site is home to a older housing stock, with little to no new development in the immediate area. The economic makeup of the area is largely low-income and working-class citizens, many […]

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