2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Innovative Outreach for Careers in the Water and Wastewater Utilities

Presented at Environmental Engineering Division (ENVIRON) Technical Session 1

The water-wastewater utility workforce is at grave risk of an aging workforce that is eligible for retirement. There is also a significant lack of diversity in most of the water workforce utilities. Our USEPA funded WaterWorks project aims at creating awareness about employment opportunities in the drinking water and wastewater utilities workforce via K-12 educational programming. The project has four innovative components: WaterMobile, WaterPal, WaterTalk and WaterCave. These components are designed to deliver hands on and virtual activities to promote not only engineering careers but also other careers in the water-wastewater industry. We are developing innovative educational activities that will raise awareness among K-12 students and educators. Most importantly, we are focused on use of contemporary technology such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) along with the use of IoT (Internet of Things) for workforce development. These new technologies are revolutionizing these utilities as they try to modernize their aging infrastructure. Our paper will focus on the development of the four components and their delivery to area school students and educators.

Authors
  1. Dr. Kauser Jahan Rowan University [biography]
  2. Jeong Eun Ahn Rowan University [biography]
Download paper (1.06 MB)

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