HR: 0800h
AN: H21F-0813    [Abstracts]
TI: Integrating Global Hydrology Into Graduate Engineering Education and Research
AU: * Griffis, V W
EM: vgriffis@mtu.edu
AF: Michigan Technological University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Houghton, MI 49931, United States
AB: Worldwide, polluted water affects the health of 1.2 billion people and contributes to the death of 15 million children under five every year. In addition poor environmental quality contributes to 25 per cent of all preventable ill health in the world. To address some of these problems, at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the world community set the goal of halving, by the year 2015, the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Solving sanitation and water resource management problems in any part of the world presents an interdisciplinary, complex challenge. However, when we attempt to solve these problems in an international context, our technical approaches must be tempered with cultural sensitivity and extraordinary management strategies. To meet this challenge, Michigan Tech has developed a unique global partnership with the U.S. Peace Corps to address our acknowledgement of the importance of placing engineering solutions in a global context. The program has graduated 30 students. Program enrollment is now over 30 and over 20 countries have hosted our students. The objective of this presentation is to demonstrate how this unique partnership can be integrated with graduate engineering education and research and also show how such a program may attract a more diverse student population into engineering. All graduate students enrolled in our Master's International Program in Civil and Environmental Engineering must complete specific coursework requirements before departing for their international experience. In CE5993 (Field Engineering in the Developing World) students learn to apply concepts of sustainable development and appropriate technology in the developing world. In FW5770 (Rural Community Development Planning and Analysis) students learn how one involves a community in the decision making process. A common theme in both courses is the role of woman in successful development projects. Technical specialization allows a student to take coursework in hydrology, water planning and management, and water quality engineering. The 2-3 semester residence on campus is then followed by three months of cultural, language, and technical training with the Peace Corps. After training students complete two years of service in the Peace Corps, typically working as a water/sanitation engineer while also completing a research project related to their Peace Corps experience. Some unique aspects of the Peace Corps experience is that it provides students with cultural awareness, language proficiency, community organizing skills, skills in consensus building and sustainable development, appreciation for technology that is economically and culturally sensitive, and a long-term field experience to develop an indepth overseas research project. Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of the Peace Corps experience is it provides students a basis to consider the social, economic, and environmental limitations of water projects in the developing world. Some examples of research projects that have been integrated into this program are: (a) culturally appropriate watershed planning and management, (b) technical capacity building of water supply systems, and (c) life cycle thinking approach applied to water and sanitation projects.
UR: http://www.D80.mtu.edu
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0855 Diversity
DE: 1871 Surface water quality
DE: 1880 Water management (6334)
DE: 1884 Water supply
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting