A children's garden designed by students is finally under construction at the Botanical Gardens after hitting several snags along the way.

The Botanical Garden received a $250,000 donation three years ago to build Babula Children's Garden. The project only recently began construction because project sponsors, wanting to let UAF engineering students get involved, had to figure out how to get around university liability regulations.

"We did not want to do the project without student involvement," said Pat Holloway, director of the agricultural research station at the Georgeson Botanical Garden.

She said her naivety disappointed her when she found out all the regulations that had to be followed.

"We thought it would be a great opportunity to use the student's work," Holloway said. "That was the whole idea. Designed by students, built by students, giving them real-world experience."

Engineering students are required to produce a senior design project showcasing all they've learned. The department is always open for proposals on building ideas for these projects.

The Botanical Gardens proposed several practical project ideas and received plans for innovative structures they wished to use for their new children's garden.

For the first two years, integrating students into the project seemed impossible. The university has strict liability laws, and regulations forbade students to build and use student's design projects without a professional seal.

Professional contractors, who could cover all liability, had to be hired. But the outside contractors would not use the student's plans and demanded $45,000 to make their own based off the student's designs, claiming they could not be liable for the student's plans without making their own comparisons first.

With the construction alone taking all of the donated money, no funds were left for more design plans.

"I could not understand why we could not use the students plans," Holloway said. "I studied other colleges online and found that other colleges all around the country had engineering student's projects built all over campus."

Holloway said UAF seemed unsupportive by being unwilling to build their students work, especially because their work was so outstanding.

Holloway then found a loophole in the regulations prohibiting the students.

"I discovered that if there was class in which the students accomplish the structure the university covers the liability and the class could build from the engineering student's blueprints," Holloway said.

Holloway proposed the idea to the dean and wrote-up a course description. The class, "Landscape Construction," was taught the following summer by Grant Mathheky, a technician for the agricultural research station and an expert in the field.

To be built, the children's garden had to be reviewed and sealed for professional standards. The person in-charge of the review, Jenny Campbell, a UAF senior engineer project manager and UAF civil engineer graduate, found several problems with the designs and returned them for further work.

The original students who designed the garden projects had moved or graduated by then. Professor Leroy Hulsey, who was the initial instructor for the proposals, challenged the graduate civil engineer students with the revision of the plans.

"I put them in an environment very close to what real-world engineering would be," said Hulsey. "Giving them the opportunity to learn real-world engineering and problem solving by bringing real invents to the students for development."

Professor Hulsey overlooked the plans and put his professional seal on them after making minor alterations to guarantee that they were build able.

"The students are not restricted initially by structural guidelines and this makes their designs more imaginative," said Hulsey. "We want them to think."

Campbell was also the on-site engineer for the construction project and worked closely with Mathheky to build the structures. She said she was pleased to see the engineering department getting some experience.

"There are no practical courses at UAF and [engineering] students go out without knowing how to build anything because there are no practical courses," Campbell said. "The students complain that they are not learning anything practical, so it's great to see them try and change that."

Campbell said that although the student's work was not useable without revision, she appreciated that they got an opportunity for them to get practical experience.

She said more of these types of projects are needed so engineering students get the most out of their education.