I have a long-time interest in science education and water in Ghana. (For example, an article I wrote many years ago for New Scientist entitled "Eyes on the Volta Lake.").  We have a faculty member at Wayne State focused on Ghana studies (Jennifer Hart:  https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/eu0767); you might have some cooperative opportunities with her.  Do you plan to attend the Ghana Studies Association conference scheduled for July, 2021 in Tamale? [wonder if that will be affected by COVID-19].  I hope to attend to renew/review some of my observations from years ago. 

Regarding citizen-based water testing: have you considered the use of 3M Petrifilm plates?  See our research on this method for citizen-based water testing:  Vail, J.H., Morgan, R., Merino, C.R., Gonzales, F, Miller, R., and Ram, J.L. Enumeration of waterborne Escherichia coli using Petrifilm plates:  Comparison to standard methods.  Env. Quality. 32: 368-373,  2003.  An Africa-centric application of the technique, designed for use where electricity or an incubator may not be available has been described by Metcalf and Polinelli in several abstracts at the American Society for Microbiology, but never published in peer-review, as far as I can tell.  If you want more information about this, contact me.

Hi Jeff - I am the Environmental Engineering co-PI.  I actually had a MS student who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar who did some comparisons between different methods for E. coli enumeration.  The petrifilm plates were compact and easy to use even for field workers with little training.  3M was also very generous with discounts.  However, we had difficulty in getting down to the lower detection levels we needed for drinking water.  She tried to modify the plates with a filter pad but I don't think she was ever happy with the results.  I had heard that 3M has made some changes in their method so maybe we should take another look.  I have in my "to do" list for our next trip to Ghana to take some plates along.  

Sarina:  The Petrifilm plates work well for environmental monitoring, where the counts of interest are (depending on local regulations) on the order of 100 to 300 cfu/100 mL.  Drinking water, which requires <1 cfu/100 mL is beyond the capabilities of the system.  Using a supplementary filtration step sort of defeats the purpose of the simplicity.  We have a method that we've used for another project that employs two syringes and a syringe filter and doesn't require modification of the Petrifilm plate that might work to enhance the sensitivity to the level needed for drinking water.  Write to me directly by email if you are interested in discussing further.

I had the same questions, Alison, thank you!

The main contribution from the students has been the design of the BSF itself. We have a parallel project going on in Tampa and the high school students designed a BSF that is being used in a modified form for research at USF. The bench scale model that was used in Ghana was also developed in part along with the students. We were using them with schools in Tampa until they shut down because of the pandemic. We're in the process of putting together an article that will have more about the students' contribution to the research being done at USF.

That hasn't been the strongest part of the project. We've had one cohort so far, which we're learning from. The second cohort will not be going to Ghana this summer because of the pandemic. However, we are meeting with them to prepare them, and some of the students from the first cohort are helping with preparing the second.

For the first cohort we recruited only from USF. We sent out information to students in the sciences, education, public health, and global sustainability. We also posted flyers around campus. For cohort 2 we did a national search through professional and research association listserves. We also did the local recruitiment.

Thanks!  

For this particular grant, my co-PI, Erin Krupa, is math ed faculty. Our project manager, Cameron Good, is a science ed graduate student. @Marcia We've also worked with James and Tiffany in CS!  

Definitely. We work with Tiffany Barnes and James Lester among others.

marcia

Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Do you have a particular piece of writing about it that you would recommend?

We had two types of students -- the USF students and the Ghanaian students. The USF students were selected because they had this interest to begin with. This experience strengthened their interest. For the Ghanaian students this was of immediate interest. Most of them used some type of onsite water treatment but not biosand filters. This increased their awareness of the pathogens that could still remain in their water. They were also very interested in the issue of fluoride removal because many knew people who suffered from fluorosis. 

Jeffrey - Thanks for the information about the Tamale conference and Jennifer Hart's work.

Hi Jeffrey - Thank you for your email. It made us aware that we had not informed any of our partners in Ghana about this showcase. I just sent the information to them.

Allan