Implementing Service-Focused Activities Focused on Water Quality While Teaching a Freshmen Undergraduate Course During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Historically, high levels of self-reported stress, anxiety, and depression are quite common among STEM students. Unfortunately, after multiple semesters of disrupted education due to COVID-19, these mental struggles among students, especially first-year (freshmen) undergraduate engineering students, have only been exacerbated. To mitigate these struggles, active and thoughtful engagement in learning can be implemented. The main goal of this study was to implement an engaging, teamwork building, service-focused Environmental Engineering activity in a freshmen Civil Engineering course (CE 101, Introduction to Civil Engineering) where students performed a water quality monitoring campaign using two commercially available lowcost test strips (21 and 51) while returning to campus. Additionally, the quality of the results obtained and the students' reception of this service-focused activity were evaluated. This activity (1) engaged the students, (2) had a positive impact on their environmental engineering knowledge, and (3) generated useful water quality data related to tap water and surficial water in northern Mississippi. Results highlighted the (1) overall good quality of the tap water collected, with the analyzed analytes significantly below the U.S. EPA maximum contaminant levels, (2) ability of low-cost test strips to generate trustworthy data (results obtained by the students were not statistically different, p > 0.05, compared to the quality assurance and quality control samples implemented) that can help local communities in assessing the quality of their water, and (3) ability to perform service-focused activity while teaching STEM courses. Students positively valued this service-focused activity, and they were enthusiastic about further experiencing this approach in other classes.