The California Student Leadership in Green Infrastructure group collaborated with Davis Senior High School students, teachers, and staff to design and implement a rain garden at a highly visible and central courtyard space on the high school campus.  Prior to its transformation, this space flooded during the rainy season, had significant pedestrian circulation/erosion/soil compaction problems, and lacked any significant planting to promote biodiversity and habitat value. The redesign of this space called for a 1,150 square foot rain garden designed to capture impervious area runoff from nearby sidewalks and rooftops, solved site circulation and erosion problems, and created an aesthetically pleasing landscape area that can adapt to both drought and wet conditions.  This rain garden project allows UC Davis students to gain first-hand design, community engagement, advocacy, and construction experience with green infrastructure and climate change mitigation.

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While the SLGI group has completed three on-campus green infrastructure projects since 2015, this unique partnership with Davis Senior High School and Davis Joint Unified School District will help demonstrate UC Davis students’ commitment and positive impact within the local community and beyond. 

 

The major project goals of the Davis Senior High School Rain Garden were to:

 

1) Implement sustainable development through low-cost green infrastructure;

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2) Educate both UC Davis students and Davis Senior High School students in the design-build process of Landscape Architecture, and;

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3) Provide general outreach on green infrastructure, sustainable stormwater management, and drought-tolerant landscaping.

 

To make the project possible, UC Davis awarded the California Student Leadership in Green Infrastructure funding though The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF).  In addition, the project has received grant funding from the Davis High School PTA, and Davis Farm to School Program.  The was constructed in 2020.

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