The Southern Illinois Well Water Quality Project: A Service-Learning Project in Environmental Chemistry

Abstract

An environmental chemistry service-learning project was implemented by Greenville University in coordination with the local county health department to test the quality of well water for residents in a five-county region of southern Illinois. Well owners attended a student run well water testing "kickoff meeting", received testing kits, collected their water samples as instructed, and returned the kits to the health department on a predetermined date. Student investigators analyzed the water samples for a range of contaminants, including the concentrations of eight different metals (including lead and arsenic), nitrate ion, and the presence of coliform and Escherichia coli bacteria. Values for pH and water hardness were also determined. The results were communicated to well owners through well water testing reports and at an "interpretation meeting", where students met with the well owners to help them understand and interpret their results. To date, over 130 wells have been tested. The project provided student investigators positive service-learning experiences while delivering many southern Illinois well owners important water quality information.

Monitoring water quality through citizen science while teaching STEM undergraduate courses during a global pandemic

“…Environmental coursework can easily be adapted to existing curricula ( Wenzel and Austin, 2001 ) and teachers can set the level of complexity based on the students' background (e.g., freshmen vs. senior students) as well as on the available budget. Among the different environmental topics, water quality has been implemented in a few service-learning activities included in analytical and/or environmental chemistry courses during the last decade ( Dameris et al, 2019 ; Jung et al, 2017 ; Schwarz et al, 2016 ; Tomasik et al, 2014 ; Donaghy and Saxton, 2012 ; Long et al, 2012 ; Kammler et al, 2012 ). Most of these activities include the collection and analysis of different water samples.…”

“…Most of these activities include the collection and analysis of different water samples. Analysis has been conducted in the field using portable instrumentations or in the classroom using test kits and/or more advanced instrumentations ( Dameris et al, 2019 ; Jung et al, 2017 ; Schwarz et al, 2016 ; Tomasik et al, 2013 ; Kammler et al, 2012 ). Due to the extended involvement required (e.g., duration of the sampling and analytical activities, samples' holding time, etc.…”

The role of community‐based learning in teaching about industrial ecology and sustainability in the context of engineering education: A case study from the field

“…The notion of combining PBL and service‐learning courses is not new, although the CBL terminology may be with respect to engineering education. The field of chemistry provides ample examples of this occurring in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education (Kalivas, 2008; Sutheimer, 2008; Dameris et al., 2020). Draper (2004) describes the coupled “project‐based service‐learning” integration in an advanced environmental chemistry course, and a statistically significant increase in the average score of student responses to end of semester evaluations compared to previous conventional offerings, suggesting that students may enjoy the ability to serve the community while learning, and the potential for it to give greater meaning to their efforts.…”

Improvement of Adaptive Learning Service Recommendation Algorithm Based on Big Data

“…Each time, the system randomly selects the corresponding proportion of test questions according to the difficulty of selecting test questions, and automatically scores the answers. The test results will be recorded in personal Learning resources related to knowledge points, learning history information through the system, and stored in the personal data model in the form of vectors according to the scores, to generate the evaluation vectors of knowledge points as the basis for personalized recommendation [19,20]. By establishing a matrix to represent relations between the test exercises and the knowledge points, the students' answers are true reflection of the students' knowledge points [21,22].…”