Five high school seniors from the ACE Academy in Northeast Portland presented two models of the Sellwood Bridge landslide mitigation at the April 23 meeting of the Board of County Commissioners.
The county's Sellwood Bridge project uses this large public works project to teach real world lessons to local K – 12 students. The ACE Academy is a charter school for east county students interested in architecture, construction and engineering.
This school year ACE students worked with the Sellwood Bridge project team to study how the project will prevent a historic landslide from damaging the west end of the new bridge. The landslide damaged the old bridge to the point that it needed to be replaced.
One student team built a scale model of the landslide that included a simulated landslide. A second team built a model showing how a series of underground shafts and ground anchors will hold the hillside back.
"You not only did a great job designing your models, you also did a great job explaining this complicated part of our project," Commissioner Deborah Kafoury told the students.