Civil Engineering Students Partner with Nonprofit to Enhance City Trails

In communities across the country, high school students are taking their learning outside of the classroom and into the real world. Through a unique partnership with the nonprofit organization Georgetown Trails Foundation, civil engineering students in Georgetown ISD (GISD) are not only experimenting with outside learning, but they are building bridges – quite literally – between education and community that will leave a lasting impact.

“This project came to be because our teacher, Mr. Walker Nikolaus, was seeking opportunities for us to get experience in the real world,” Georgetown High School (GHS) senior Tessa Heidkamp said. “And Georgetown Trails Foundation’s mission to fix up trails and outdoor spaces around our community was a perfect fit for our class.”

In November, The Foundation presented two projects for the class to tackle, both located on the San Gabriel River Trails:

1. Replace an existing but outdated bridge, and
2. Build an entirely new bridge over a hazardous dip in the trail.

The class split into two teams and began creating designs and calculating pricing for their designated project proposals. 

“I was impressed by the questions they asked when we first met, and I could tell they really wanted to satisfy us,” Georgetown Trails Foundation Vice President Aaron Zander said. “Their level of maturity and attention to detail was high from the start, and I was confident to take the next step in this partnership.”

Once the two designs were approved, it was time to get to the hands-on work. On January 17, Mr. Nikolaus, Zander and the class hauled wood out to the trails and brought the bridges to life.

“Everyone was having a good time and working well together,” East View Junior Charles Brainard said. “It was a pretty seamless build, and any conflicts that came up were pretty quickly resolved.”

This was the first time the students had built a tangible project from scratch, beyond making models with popsicle sticks in class.

“We have a lot of gratitude for Mr. Nikolaus and the students for their collaboration, passion and the way they represented GISD throughout the project,” Zander said. “This was about community involvement and getting others passionate about being outdoors, and I can’t wait to do something like this again.” 

“This was a really fun project and something cool to be a part of,” Heidkamp said. “I told my friend, a GHS graduate and Georgetown resident, about it, and he was like ‘Oh my gosh, I bike in that area all the time. You guys made a real impact there!’”