DownloadAug. 24, 2009 issue
Research projects take EMU students, profs along diverse paths
By Jim Bishop Eastern Mennonite UniversityPage:
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HARRISONBURG, Va. — They worked with water sanitation, composting toilets, fire ants and tomatoes.
Chrissy Kreider prepares to test drinking water in a Cambodian village. — Photo provided by EMU
This summer several Eastern Mennonite University students and professors conducted research on campus and overseas.
Jakob zumFelde, Christine Kreider and Gene Fifer worked with Doug Graber Neufeld, professor of biology, and Thai and Cambodian colleagues on water sanitation projects in Cambodia.
ZumFelde worked at the Asian Institute of Technology observing what happens to sewage in a local community when the sewage and accompanying rain water runs into open canals and then into a local lake.
Kreider, a junior biology major from Columbia, Pa., worked at Research Development International, or RDI, a nongovernmental organization outside Phnom Penh, doing survey work and testing drinking water in rural villages.
She looked at the impact of drinking water education, following up on work Laura Cattell, a 2009 EMU graduate, did there last year.
“It has been so refreshing to see how people of different faiths and cultures can work together to not only advance science, but the quality of life for many rural Cambodians,” Kreider said.
Fifer, a senior environmental science major, did village survey work with RDI on the feasibility of implementing composting toilets to deal with human waste.
Graber Neufeld said the Cambodian project is part of a National Science Foundation grant designed to give undergraduates experience doing research overseas.
The primary idea is “to show students how science is done in a culture very different from their own,” he said. “Our hope is that in the future, if they pursue science careers, these students will have a broader concept of how science is relevant beyond our own borders and how it can be used for the public good in the broadest sense.”
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