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PennEWB International Project Team Application OPEN NOW!
We are now selecting two teams to travel to Ngyenmbo, Cameroon in May 2012 and Pajomel, Guatemala in August 2012. The trip will involve a program fee that will qualify for financial aid. This program fee will cover travel, room, and board. Additionally, students will receive 2 c.u. for participating in the program. Applications are due December 3rd at 11:59pm: Click here to apply. To see what we have done in Cameroon and Guatemala, check out our video: Penn EWB Video Cameroon Penn Engineers Without Borders is returning Cameroon for a fourth project in the Bome Valley of the Northwest Region. Since 2007, we have worked with a local NGO to implement two water...
Read MoreInnovative Toilets
This article, also discussed at the Cameroon committee meeting last week, goes into more specific detail about what the future of toilets could look like. The toilets discussed here are pretty cutting-edge, separating and drying human excrement, transforming it into natural gas and fertilizer, and even using it as an electricity source. PennEWB is really interested in these developments because they promise more sanitary conditions and more creative recycling in devloping countries around the world! Here is the...
Read MoreGuatemala Commitee Discusses Sustainability Initiatives
Last Tuesday, The Guatemala Committee met to discuss sustainability issues and how feasible the initiatives described in this article were. http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v305/n5/full/scientificamerican1111-60.html The article notes that humans use 4,000 cubic kilometers of water per year, 70% of which is used for irrigation. This causes diminished flows in many large rivers and declining water tables in various areas of the world. Pollution of water by fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides is another problem posed by the expansion of agriculture and increased food production — runoff from farmland causes algal blooms and “dead zones,”...
Read MoreDesign Committee
Students from the Design committee have spent the past few months constructing a slow sand water filter designed to purify clean water to make it potable. Such filters may be used in communities across the globe without access to safe drinking water since they require only basic materials and do not involve access to electricity. Slow sand filters function because a biofilm composed of bacteria develops in the top of the filter after several weeks, trapping harmful bacteria, fungi, etc. previously present in the water. The filter assembled by the Design committee was displayed on Penn’s campus to raise awareness to the student body. Over the past year, students...
Read MoreNERW Recap
This weekend, PennEWB attended the Northeast Regional Workshop, hosted by the Columbia University chapter of EWB. NERW emphasized networking and collaboration between chapters, and featured speakers, panel discussions, and technical session that offered hands-on experience with real-life scenarios that can be encountered in EWB-USA work. All together, the workshops attempted to improve upon the processes and functions of individual chapters, and the EWB-USA organization as a whole. In addition, there was an opening address by Cathy Leslie, Executive Director of EWB-USA. In fact, PennEWB was graciously invited to hold a workshop on Engaging Membership through Local...
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