Project Overview
This educational project develops a culturally responsive water focused curriculum that takes a unique stand of combining social justice and engineering. The goal is to provide middle school teachers with the materials to use the culturally responsive tenets of connectedness, asset building and reflection to inspire students to address global water needs. Instead of only focusing on the engineering behind water purification and infrastructure, the curriculum will also include a strong emphasis on how water plays a large role in everyday life and how this varies between different regions of the world.
The projects’ educational partners include Dr. Mary Laura Lind, Dean Elizabeth Wentz, and Dr. Kimberly Scott. The project and researcher, Sofia Herrera, were funded by the ASU/NASA Space Grant office through a 2016/2017 graduate fellowship.
Curriculum Developer Biography
During the development of the curriculum, Sofia Herrera was obtaining her Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at ASU in May 2016. She has a unique background of working in a water purification research lab as well as leading projects in the ASU chapter of Engineers Without Borders. These experiences inspired her to develop a curriculum for middle school students that incorporated these specific aspects of water. She submitted her idea for the curriculum to the ASU/NASA Space Grant office and received a year-long fellowship to develop the curriculum.