{"id":75569,"date":"2020-06-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-grad-student-awarded-grant-to-help-village-in-india-improve-drinking-water\/"},"modified":"2020-06-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T00:00:00","slug":"uri-grad-student-awarded-grant-to-help-village-in-india-improve-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/uri-grad-student-awarded-grant-to-help-village-in-india-improve-drinking-water\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 grad student awarded grant to help village in India improve drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 4, 2020 \u2013 Miles Schelling has had an uncommon interest in India ever since traveling there with his parents while in the seventh grade.<\/p>\n

He was awarded a grant as an undergraduate mathematics major at Bates College to study music in New Delhi, and he returned a year later to teach music in a remote village in the Himalayan mountains. As a graduate student studying geosciences at the 溏心vlog免费B站, he traveled to India twice more to learn about the challenges small communities face in obtaining clean drinking water.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a Christianson Grant from the InterExchange Foundation<\/a>, Schelling is headed back to India once again after completing his 溏心vlog免费B站 degree in August. This time he will work with The Energy and Resources Institute in the city of Panjim to continue his work to provide clean drinking water to a local village.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I went there with 溏心vlog免费B站, we visited a remote mountain village, Nersa, where we learned that people were getting sick during the monsoon season because their water was contaminated with E. coli,\u201d said Schelling, who grew up in Putney, Vermont<\/strong>. \u201cWhen I got back to the States, I thought it was a powerful experience and I wanted to go back to work in the village as part of my master\u2019s thesis with Professor Tom Boving.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, he spent four months conducting a survey of village residents in partnership with Jeremy Mack, a colleague at the University of Southern Maine. They learned that 73 percent of the residents had been sick in the previous year due to the contaminated water, and everyone they surveyed reported experiencing water shortages during the dry season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tested the water quality in the village and found it heavily contaminated with E. coli,\u201d Schelling said. \u201cSo last year I constructed a massive water filtration system using a biosand filter that\u2019s now filtering the water for the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the pipeline that delivers water to Nersa from a mountain stream two miles away has been damaged by a monsoon, burned by fires, and eaten by wild pigs. It leaks and is no longer a viable water delivery system.<\/p>\n

Schelling will use his Christianson grant funding to return to Nersa to continue testing his filter system and survey the residents again. If he can attract the necessary funding, he also hopes to rebuild the water pipeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hoping to go in October, but the pandemic has delayed my trip,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll go whenever it\u2019s safe for me to go and probably stay for six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he returns home again, he plans to seek additional international water development opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not yet sure how best to approach that, so I may also do work as an environmental consultant focusing on more local issues like river monitoring and contaminated groundwater from gas stations,\u201d he said, noting that he will also continue his work as a math tutor. \u201cBut I don\u2019t make lists, and I don\u2019t set goals. We\u2019ll see where it leads.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 4, 2020 \u2013 Miles Schelling has had an uncommon interest in India ever since traveling there with his parents while in the seventh grade. He was awarded a grant as an undergraduate mathematics major at Bates College to study music in New Delhi, and he returned a year later to teach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-75569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-the-environment-and-life-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}