by Alina Rosenkranz |
Amongst trailer homes, dogs and horses in the Arizona desert south of Phoenix lives the Native American tribe Tohono O’odham.
Senior civil engineering students Amanda Thompson, Jon May, Jacob Hagen and Colleen Koenig spent their fall break experiencing this world, which seemed entirely different than their own.
For their senior design project, they are working to improve Tohono O’odham’s water system, working closely with Indian Health Services (IHS) and the Tohono O’odham Utility Authority (TOUA).
Thompson said the community was very welcoming and often curious to know what they were working on.
“It put a lot more purpose to our work, actually going down there and meeting the people who it would affect,” Thompson said.
The group is working with three communities and a community college. Their goal is to improve the entire tribe’s water system by tying these entities together. They surveyed the water system by measuring the water pressure at homes throughout the Tohono O’odham nation, and will continue working to develop strategies to improve the system.
“This was the only time we were able to see our fields or our site in person,” Thompson said. “We were pretty much testing the water system as it currently stands and spent many hours in the field.”
According to the dean of the Shiley School of Engineering, Sharon Jones, the group worked every day of fall break from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and adapted well to their environment, despite how brief their time at the reservation was.
“Basically working for a Native American reservation or Native American nation is like working with an international partner,” Jones said. “So understanding the cultural differences of a Native American reservation compared to what all of the students or most of the students are more used to is challenging.”
Thompson said another challenge they experienced was that the tribe’s water distribution system isn’t well documented, making it difficult to take measurements.
“Equipment, that was probably the biggest (challenge),” May said. “We only had a GPS for two days and one of the days we didn’t even have all the equipment.”
They look forward to presenting the report of their analysis at the end of spring semester after they finish their project. Until then, they will continue to provide progress reports to IHS and TOUA. Alina Rosenkranz is a staff writer for The Beacon. She can be reached at rosenkra17@up.edu.
