Students worked with GIS software to analyze land-cover classification and elevation data and calculate stormwater flow paths. Then, spreading out among the fields they had studied in the lab, the students checked their predictions against what was actually happening on the ground. Back in the lab, they used that data to find areas where water-protection projects would have the most impact, then devised solutions, including retention ponds, engineered swales (shallow, vegetated ditches) and vegetated streambank buffers.