Environmental Engineering Weekly Recap 1
It’s been quite an interesting week as we kicked off our Environmental Engineering program! High school students in varying grades met with Dr. Maha to learn about what was expected of them, as well as state their expectations for the program. They also began developing their research topics, which were as varied as the relevant fields of research, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Computer Science. Many of these questions were focused on addressing current environmental problems, from environmental restoration to addressing the impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
In the first two classes, students learned about earth systems, such as land, atmosphere, and oceans, as well as the various cycles that power the Earth. They also learned about terrestrial and aquatic biomes as well as the impacts of their interactions. For some this was new knowledge, while for others this was something that they had some familiarity with. There were even times when students contributed their own knowledge and surprised Dr. Maha with their insights during lecture. Regardless, being able to properly understand these foundational topics will help students to better refine their own research topics
Students also learned about utilizing data to support their research topics through MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory), and online coding program that is widely in many STEM fields to perform numeric and statistical computations. With MATLAB, students will look for relevant datasets to support their research. Furthermore, students were given both shared and individual resources on how to draft and refine their research papers such as academic articles, peer-reviewed journals, and government databases. Their research topics will culminate into a project submission to the AGU (American Geophysical Union) conference, which is the world’s largest international Earth and space science meeting in the world. AGU is an international, nonprofit scientific association dedicated to promoting discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity.
We look forward to seeing what they can accomplish!
