As ENST499C is the last of my upper-level courses in the ENST program, I gained valuable information about ecological-based green technologies. While I had familiarity with stormwater management technologies such as green roofs and rain gardens from previous courses, I got a more in-depth perspective on this category of Best Management Practices (BMPs), particularly on the different design elements and what settings they are most applicable in through the lectures. There were a lot of opportunities in this class to practice critical thinking, and one miniature assignment that stood out to me was discussing what BMPs we would invest in to meet PG County’s goals and why. The CAST Modeling assignment was one I found to be one of the most challenging in this course, primarily because of the online format. Coordinating with my group mates over Zoom on a website that was already hard to navigate was frustrating, but the end results of the summary and charts made for an interesting process. Additionally, I gained more knowledge about aspects of green design I previously only had an elementary understanding of, such as stream restoration and nutrient management. The Nutrient Trading Business Model assignment in class was another assignment that I liked, as it forced us to quickly think on the spot and consider how to market cover cropping to farmers. Learning about LEED was something I was not expecting in this course, but I am glad that it was one of the topics. As someone who is interested in pursuing a career dealing with the built environment, I had always been fascinated by the idea of LEED buildings. Learning more about the certification process showed me that there are some drawbacks with the point system and the cost of receiving certification, but I will likely still pursue it if I have the chance.

Pulling everything we learned from this course, and everything we learned from other ENST courses together for the final green technology project was something I really enjoyed. I liked being given the freedom from the beginning in project selection, where we were given the opportunity to come up with our own project ideas in certain locations, and our classmates could rank their interest. This approach made for an interesting array of projects that I enjoyed seeing in the final presentations. In hindsight, community gardens and tackling food insecurity have always been interesting to me, but I feel like it was a safe option in terms of a project. A couple of the other group projects, such as living silt fences and greenhouse camper vans, stood out to me because they were very creative.

Regarding the structure of the course, I did feel as though some content was rushed. I understand the online nature of this semester made it difficult to dedicate as much time to interactive learning, given that a normal semester would feature a lab portion. This is something I would have enjoyed, but I think you did a great job of giving us diverse, interactive assignments that make the material easier and more exciting to learn.