News
Local Committee Updates
SAUL Local has been working with Saul Agricultural High School for the past few years to teach a series on sustainable development and related appropriate technologies. (For more information, see https://pennewb.org/blog/local/) This year, Local is looking to construct a pipeline to transport large bodies of water collected in rain water barrels to a field of crops. The next step for Local is to dig a trench through the driveway and lay the pipes in. This portion of the project has to be completed in one day to avoid obstructing...
read morePennEWB 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...
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...
read moreBill Gates to Reinvent the Toilet?
Last week, Penn EWB’s Cameroon committee met and discussed a couple of articles that relate to sustainability and sanitation. This article discusses the sanitation issues associated with human waste elimination in developing countries. Representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are quoted in the article, saying that perhaps the end to the Western-style, flushable toilet is in sight. There are other, more healthful and sustainable ways to utilize and recycle human excrement in developing countries, perhaps as...
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...
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,...
read moreInternational Committee Update from Liz
Let’s see what International has been up to these past few weeks: “In international, we are currently working on 3 new projects. The first is a potential water distribution system project in the village of Nygenmbo, Cameroon, which is just across town from Kob and Gundom, where we previously had successful projects. Mike Magaraci and Nishant Neel are leading this new phase and will be traveling to Cameroon in January. The second is a continuation of our work in Guatemala. We recently had Atit Ala discuss with the community their...
read moreDesign committee update – from Casey
Here’s a little bit about what the Penn EWB Design committee has been working on in the last month or so… “The Design committee has been outlining plants for construction of a slow sand water filter. We have researched how filters work, designs that have been successful in the past, and the qualities that will be most important and relevant for our filter. We then constructed a final design for the EWB filter and purchased necessary supplies.” -Casey, Design Chair Awesome work!
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