Beginning April 2018, UCLA will offer a service learning class in which undergraduates collaborate with 7th graders at St. Anne’s School and high school students at Crossroads School in Los Angeles. Undergraduates will develop lessons on water quality, climate change, and storm water treatment. Student teams will conduct a climate change data analysis and design-build-test a storm water treatment system. The class will culminate in a symposium in which middle school students present a research poster and present their results to a panel of undergraduates. Professional evaluators (Smart Start Inc.) will refine course objectives and assess student interest in, and understanding of, local-to-global environmental science issues. The MRPI team is also: (1) co-organizing an upcoming symposium “Reaching for Resilience: Imagining Regional Stormwater Neutrality” with San Diego Coastkeeper. The conference will feature many MRPI researchers (UCSD, UCLA, UCI); and (2) working with OCPW to leverage the utility’s $1.2M outreach budget, to disseminate study results to frontline practitioners.
Catalyzing A Revolution in Stormwater Management