PIRE Impact Day – A Collaboration Between Bahir Dar Institute of Technology and UConn

 

Ethiopian high school students have been an integral part of the Water and Food Security PIRE project’s Citizen Science Initiative for several years. This summer, the UConn and Bahir Dar team created an exciting opportunity for the project high school students to come together, celebrate their effort and to have a discussion on their experience as a citizen scientist. The planning culminated to the PIRE Impact Day hosted at Bahir Dar Institute of Technology (BiT), which took place on June 19, 2021.

Nine students were present early on a Saturday morning where they were welcomed by CSI lead, Dr. Seifu Tilahun, Associate Professor of Hydrology and Scientific Director of BiT and BiT graduate students Mr. Wondale and Mr. Berhanu. Dr. Tilahun highlighted the objective of the project for the local community, decision makers, and concerned stakeholders to enhance agricultural production in a sustainable way.

Mr. Wondale and Mr. Berhanu led the high schoolers through a guided exercise of how a hydrologist would interpret the data that was collected. The high school students enjoyed brainstorming the cause of the spatial and temporal variation in measurements and sites. Afterwards, the high school students answered a survey created by UConn Engineering graduate student, Genevieve Rigler, and project sociology lead, Dr. Elizabeth Holzer, Associate Professor of Sociology, to capture the student experience in the Citizen Science Initiative.

The event was considered a success by all parties and the feedback of the students will be integrated into the next season of their involvement. We were happy to see from the survey that the students noted an increase in their knowledge and their interest in STEM. The project is very grateful to all of the planning done by the BiT team and to the high school students for their hard work said PIRE project PI Emmanouil Anagnostou, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Categories: News

Published: August 10, 2021