Sills, Deborah, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive, Lewisburg, PA 17837, dls054@bucknell.edu; Gwin, Carley, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive, Lewisburg, PA 17837, cag031@bucknell.edu.
For over a decade, waterways in Union County have been classified as impaired for recreation based on pollution with fecal bacteria. We created a learning module on local water quality with a focus on bacterial pollution in collaboration with the Buffalo Creek Watershed Alliance (BCWA). We have been administering the module in CEEG 340: Introduction to Environmental Engineering. CEEG 340 is part of both the civil engineering and environmental engineering curricula, but students from other STEM majors also take this course.
Members of the BCWA visit our classroom and talk about their specific concerns, as well as their work and roles in working with the community and helping to restore and protect local waterways. Students then learn about standard water quality parameters by going out into the field, sampling, conducting laboratory measurements, and analyzing data. Students also research water quality regulations to contextualize their data. Students communicate their results to the public using memos, letters to the editor, Instagram posts, and websites– which go through multiple drafts with feedback from the instructor. In addition, before creating their communication artifact, students participate in an analysis of audience exercise. After completing the project students submit a reflection on their experiences—what they learned and their interests in community engagement. We hope that the continued use of this module will ensure a long-term collaborative program with the BCWA community partner and draw from the organization’s current concerns and needs. We thank The Center for Community Engaged Leadership, Learning & Research; and The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Bucknell University) for funding.
community engaged, learning, water quality