Bridge over Mossy Creek

A series of pedestrian bridges in the Mossy Creek area in Mount Solon, VA, were washed away after historic flooding in May and September 2018. There is a need to rebuild the bridges so that community members and visitors can access both sides of the creek's banks, specifically for the creek's primarily recreational activity of fly fishing. To respond to this problem, seven engineering students joined a special projects class coordinated by three engineering faculty members at James Madison University (JMU). In this class, students engaged with community stakeholders, developed a preliminary design of a bridge, and researched stabilization techniques of the streambed that can protect a new pedestrian bridge and trout habitat during future flood events. During this engineering process, the students sought to understand the partnership among Trout Unlimited (a non-profit), the private landowners, and the VA Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF). In that partnership, there are posted restrictions against wading through the environmentally-sensitive creek to prevent contaminants and invasive species from entering and harming the creek's ecosystem. This class is an extracurricular course offering in the JMU (non-discipline specific) engineering program, primarily centered as a problem-based approach to a specific realworld problem in the local community bounded by various constraints (e.g., community needs, environmental regulations, timeliness of construction, etc.). Through this class, students are participating in a course designed to encourage experiential learning and support interest in the engineering disciplines of civil and environmental engineering.