Background
Loleta Elementary School offers its students a garden that is cared for by onsite staff. The school plans to also add a small fruit orchard in the near future. When the fall season arrives, the school offers the community a pumpkin patch, effectively generating an additional source of revenue. Both of these agricultural activities require continued irrigation. Rather than having irrigation water provided by the municipality, Loleta Elementary School wishes to install a rainwater catchment system to support their irrigation needs.
Problem statement
The objective of this project is to install a rainwater catchment system that will reduce the cost of irrigating the garden and pumpkin patch.
Project Evaluation Criteria
The following Criteria will be used to assess the success of this project. These criteria were chosen by the team and staff members from Loleta Elementary. The scale (1-10) represents the importance level of meeting the constraint of each listed criteria.
| Criteria | Constraints | Weight (1-10) |
|---|---|---|
| Safety | Will not cause a danger to students or staff. | |
| Functionality/Effectiveness | Must provide enough rainwater to the garden to grow food for the school and drastically reduce the schools water bill. | |
| Adaptability | Be able to be modified if needed. Be able to build off of to install a water bottle filling station in the future. | |
| Cost | Supplies and materials must cost less than $1,000 US dollars. | |
| Maintainability | Be able to be kept in good condition by the experienced grounds keeper | |
| Durability | Be able to last several years with general cleaning and maintenance |