Feb. 18, 2002 -- The Consortium of Institutes for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment is developing a student design competition to provide a forum for bringing young professionals into the decentralized wastewater treatment field.
College students in various fields (such as soils and environmental science, engineering, watershed management, landscape architecture, communications, and public policy development) have already been selected to participate in piloting the first year of competition (Phase 1). These students will form a team to solve a community decentralized wastewater treatment problem in a watershed context.
Funding to support this, for at least the first two years, is provided by the National Decentralized Water Resources Capacity Development Project.
The competition is being designed to:
* promote multi-disciplinary teamwork;
* enhance students' awareness of community and small-scale wastewater treatment aspects; and
* embrace engineering, soil science, and public policy issues.
This design competition will be introduced in three phases:
* Phase 1 will develop and test the design competition at three universities as a noncompetitive prototype.
* Phase 2 will modify the competition based on the feedback and results of Phase 1 and will include an invitation for all Consortium member institutions to participate.
* Phase 3 will again make any appropriate modifications to the design competition and will include an invitation to any institution that would like to participate.
Each team will have a coach or facilitator who may suggest sources of information to the team, but not actually do the work or tell the students how to do it. The coach/facilitator's consultation time will be documented in the project report.
In addition, each team will receive the same problem statement and list of available resources, one being a discussion forum in which students can ask questions and receive answers.
For Phase 1 (this year's competition), each team will submit a final working plan to the project committee by the middle of May 2002. Each team will also present their community plan to the committee at the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association (NOWRA's) annual meeting in September 2002 in Kansas City. For future competitions, a judging panel will evaluate both the paper versions and the oral presentations at future NOWRA meetings.
For more information about the Student Design Competition, please visit the project's homepage at http://www.onsiteconsortium.org/design.cfm or contact:
Kitt Farrell-Poe
Associate Professor and Water Resources Extension Specialist
Arizona Extension Water Quality Coordinator
Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering Department
The University of Arizona, Yuma Agricultural Center
6425 W. 8th Street, Yuma, AZ 85364-9623
Voice: 928-782-3836; Fax: 928-782-1940
E-mail: [email protected]
