A Collaborative Virtual Air Quality Learning Experience with Kakenya’s Dream (Resource Exchange, Diversity)
- Conference
- Location
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Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2024
- Start Date
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June 23, 2024
- End Date
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July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE)
- Tagged Topics
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Diversity and Professional Interest Council (PIC)
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/46423
Paper Authors
Jessica Moriah Vaden University of Pittsburgh
Miss Jessica Vaden is a PhD Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh where she is a STRIVE Scholar. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in Chemical Engineering where she was a Meyerhoff Scholar (M26). Jessica’s research spans a number of different areas including sustainable engineering, empowering communities about air quality, and engineering education efforts to create inclusive classrooms and programming.
Melissa M. Bilec University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Bilec is an associate professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Bilec’s research program focuses on the built environment, life cycle assessment, sustainable healthcare, and energy im
Abstract
Kakenya’s Dream (KD) is a nonprofit organization that supports girls holistically with a foundation in quality education and community-based programming in rural Kenya. The Kakenya Center for Excellence (KCE) campuses are in a remote, vegetated valley with rolling hills. A sugarcane processing factory was built in proximity with visible air emissions impacting the KCE campuses. Our international team was formed to elucidate and monitor the local air quality on the campuses as well as provide educational opportunities to the students and teachers.
The program we developed and delivered was a virtual international learning experience, largely done during the Covid-19 pandemic. The program’s foundation was based on Morris’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Britain and Liber’s Conversational Teaching frameworks. This program includes collaborative personal experiences and background, basics of air quality, and problem-based learning experience through a citizen science project. The citizen science project included an air quality monitor (i.e. Purple Air) in which the students not only discovered the issues with air quality but also considered innovative solutions while learning about data processing and analysis. This program engaged two cohorts of students, eleventh and seventh grade, respectively. This resource focuses on sharing the modules in the curriculum that utilized the PurpleAir monitor to introduce the students to collecting air quality data.
Vaden, J. M., & Bilec, M. M. (2024, June), A Collaborative Virtual Air Quality Learning Experience with Kakenya’s Dream (Resource Exchange, Diversity) Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/46423
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