Gaia Desert

My water quality students in ENVH 568 built these sand  filters for a class requirement. They are now up and running in the LLU Environmental Microbiology Research Laboratory. We will use them for some class activities in the ENVH 569 sampling class.  We started with a design and then a trip to the hardware store We dry-fit the pieces together in the hardware store. This is where the students realized that there are many possible combinations. Students discovered that there were a few possible combinations of diffuser pipes and spout exit styles. Our class built five filters with varying construction. All filters had about 2 inches of 3/4" gravel around the pipes with another 2 inches of pea gravel on top of that (1/4" gravel). Those were separated by a cloth to minimize sand going into the gravel and then the bottom diffuser pipe. Sand was added on top of that until it was about 2" below the spout. Our filters tested varying height

This group uses the same UAV airframe that I bought a year ago from Johnny at team legit . Its being used for a good use to bring aid into Syria. The BBC video is worth a watch. The group has a non profit called the Syria Airlift Project . My current project Talon fixed wing has a Pixhawk flight controller, a downward facing Canon sx260, and wing extensions.  I'm still deciding if I want to run a large 4s or 3s battery.

Dr. Steve Kurti's TTinvent allowed our lab to borrow his Afinia 3D printer for 2 months. In that time, we printed many useful things for the lab and the ideas keep coming! Here are a few of the successful prints we made: Links on Thingiverse: A clamp for the microscope A centrifuge tube holder Pipette rack Octopus A clamp to turn a 1967 microscope into a digital microscope! A centrifuge tube holder! Finally! A cuvette holder for that old HACH spectrophotometer. Many pipette holders. Octopus Surprise Attack!

The Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP) of the Coachella Valley was a complicated process. A single water user would have a hard time jumping in and making sense of it all. There are resources for Disadvantaged Communities (DACs) to use, but most people would require advocates or a third party to interpret all of the "IRWMPese".  How can this process be simplified to truly advocate with the DACs? The IRWMP process offered me a glimpse of the vast landscape we created for our unique drinking water delivery system and wastewater management system in California. The website for the Coachella Valley IRWMP says it all . There are a huge amount of drafts, presentations, participant lists, budgets and maps. Keep in mind that this is for only the Coachella Valley region ( about 5 water districts). My experience with the IRWMP was summarized in a  report on their website:  That report is referred to as an appendix and is on  page 127 of that appendix PDF .  Our rep

3D printed glasses from  thing 22128 . I modded them to say "Career Services"

Here is a link to a prezi that we gave on Community Mapping. https://prezi.com/pytswfb6py8w/untitled-prezi/

A UN special envoy visited the United States in February 2011. Catarina de Albequerque made several recommendations about access to water and sanitation as a human right. The UN report has many striking paragraphs and sections; typical phrases and descriptions for the developing world, not so typical for our California home. As usual, the human right to water was the most popular theme. It went to Sacramento and in  2012 was passed as  Assembly Bill 685 guaranteeing the human right to water. That was a successful bill,inspired by Dr. Albequerque's visit and a political movement of water access folks. Despite all the energy around drinking water, there wasn't much ground gained for the  human right to sanitation. There are still many California residents who do NOT have access to functioning sanitation. The UN report recommends placing the human rights to water and sanitation equally at the center of policy formulation. As topics go, water is always more popular than san