1) Engineering students at Iowa State University gain hands-on experience designing appropriate technologies for developing communities through service-learning projects with organizations like Engineers Without Borders and Engineers for a Sustainable World. 2) These projects teach students about engineering solutions that fit within other cultures and help improve living standards by addressing needs like water, energy, and infrastructure. Students learn important lessons that can't be taught in a classroom. 3) One example is a project in Mali where students collaborated with villagers to design an improved water valve for a community tank, gaining insights into incorporating local needs, materials, and ensuring community ownership for long-term sustainability.

1. 14 INNOVATE > FALL 2009 IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Maggie Melcher
(CCEE09) and Chelsea
Tomek (IMSE11) learn
how the women of
Nana-Kenieba, Mali
use energy for cooking
Maggie Melcher
(CCEE09) and Chelsea
Tomek (IMSE11) learn
how the women of
Nana-Kenieba, Mali
use energy for cooking

2. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FALL 2009 > INNOVATE 15
Harvesting rainwater in India,
designing solar fruit dryers in Belize,
developing water valves in Mali, Africa:
these are just a few examples of service-
learning projects involving students at
Iowa State’s College of Engineering.
These hands-on learning experiences
take students out of the classroom and
place them in villages or communities
in need of engineering solutions to
help populations get out of poverty or
simply improve their standard of living.
They teach students about appropriate
technology and engineering solutions
that fit within the cultural, social, and
economic context of the area. And they
demonstrate a form of cross-cultural
engineering whose final outcomes can
change the lives of many—even the
students themselves.
Beyond advancing a set of professional
skills for their future careers, students
gain a broader sense of their world,
understanding that people aren’t that
different from one another, and that
they all have the same basic desires for
themselves and their families. Whether
participating in service learning through
an organization or class, students
discover the rewards and challenges of
engineering appropriate technologies in a
global context—an important lesson that
can be difficult to learn from a textbook.
A grassroots effort
Engineering students and faculty in
service-learning projects share a passion
to help others gain access to appropriate
and sustainable goods and services.
It’s this shared vision that makes the
projects so successful at Iowa State,
according to Julia Apple-Smith, director
of Engineering International Programs
and Services (EIPS).
Apple-Smith and others in the EIPS
office help get projects up and running
for organizations such as Engineers
for a Sustainable World and Engineers
Without Borders, as well as assisting
faculty members with classes dedicated
to engineering appropriate technologies
for developing nations.
Laying the groundwork for a new
project requires passing several
checkpoints within the college and the
university, as well as fund-raising and
soliciting help to champion the programs.
Student and faculty safety is a top
priority. Before students can travel to
work on projects, a faculty member
must visit the site at least once, often
with EIPS support, depending upon
the availability of funds. Also, students
are provided with an orientation on the
culture of the area they are visiting.
“A tremendous amount of
organization goes into making these
projects successful,” Apple-Smith
says. “But the return on investment—
building relationships across the globe
and addressing important needs of
people around the world—is well worth
the effort.”
Help for the poorest nations
Associate Professor of Mechanical
Engineering Mark Bryden has been
engaged with the developing world
since 1999, addressing engineering
issues in places such as Vietnam, India,
and Mexico with graduate students
who share his interest in appropriate
technology. Recently, however, he has
shifted his focus to nations that have
little or no access to services, areas
where citizens make less than $1 per
day—and he’s taking undergraduates
along for the journey.
Bryden offers a series of three
unique mechanical engineering (ME)
courses in appropriate technology that
present students with the challenge
of engineering in developing countries
with limited resources. Sustainable
Engineering and International
Development (ME 388) provides
students with an overall sense of
systems and sustainability; Design for
Appropriate Technologies (ME 486)
allows students to design solutions for
real problems; and Applied Methods
in Sustainable Engineering and
International Development (ME 389)
puts students in the field, where they’ll
implement on location the designs
developed in ME 486.
For the past several years, Bryden and
Professor and Chair of Materials Science
and Engineering Richard LeSar have
been working with their students on
technologies for a village in Mali, Africa,
where more than half the population
lives in extreme poverty.
“Students learn the multicultural
aspects of poverty, and how important
those factors are in engineering design,”
Bryden says. “They have to answer
tough questions like, ‘How do I design
something for someone with low literacy,
who doesn’t speak the administrative
language of the country?’ Or, ‘How
can this technology operate in a place
without running water or electricity?’ ”
A village takes ownership
With a longstanding interest in
international development, ME junior
Keysha Hennings started answering
some of those questions while working
on a water valve project for ME 389.
Once in Mali, she and her fellow students
had the opportunity to speak with local
villagers through a translator. According
to Hennings, the discussions were more
about the villagers’ daily lives rather than
Service and learning join to bring sustainable technologies—
and hope—to communities in developing nations.

3. 16 INNOVATE > FALL 2009 IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
the student projects, so students had
a better idea how to design something
that fit into the villagers’ lifestyles rather
than impeding them.
After all, observes Hennings, a
primary objective of the engineers is
to act as catalysts and resources for
the villagers, rather than just dropping
in with a technology and leaving.
Hennings’ experience therefore taught
her as well the importance of local
ownership of the technologies.
“For an appropriate technology to
be sustainable, the people using it
have to feel like it is their own, taking
responsibility for repairing or improving
it,” Hennings says. “If these villagers
don’t take charge and get involved with
the projects, they won’t end up using
the technologies.”
The water valve project Hennings
and other engineering students
collaborated on involved the community
water tank, which frequently ran empty
from leaks. The villagers use the valve
on the tank about 200 times per day, a
rate that exceeds the lifecycle of the
valve on the side of your house in little
more than a month.
“These solutions take ingenuity,”
Hennings says. “You are working with
bicycle inner tube and sticks instead of
metal rods and Teflon tape.”
With improved water, as well as
benefits from the lighting and cook stove
projects the class has been working on,
villagers in these rural areas will be safer
and have more time to spend on income-
generating activities for themselves and
their village.
Putting goodwill to work
New to campus in 2008, Engineers
Without Borders (EWB) plans to visit
Mali this fall to assist with Bryden
and his students’ efforts, as well as
instituting its own projects in the west
African nation to address sanitation,
health care, clean and safe energy, and
daily nutritional needs.
Organized independently in several
different European nations in the 1990s
before coming to the United States in
2001, EWB works to advance the quality
of life in poor nations by meeting basic
needs and providing social engagement
to support community development.
Currently a doctoral student studying
mechanical engineering and international
development, president and founder of
the Iowa State chapter Nathan Johnson
(BSME’04, MSME’05) says EWB gives
students an opportunity and direction for
putting their goodwill to work.
“Students are interested in addressing
humanitarian issues,” Johnson says.
“With EWB, they find a common vision
and a pathway for developing skills
to meet needs of the next generation
across the globe.”
The organization is open to all
disciplines in an effort to bring cross-
disciplinary insight to projects. As EWB
continues to develop as a student
organization, leaders are planning
awareness events to help build
knowledge about global issues.
“Once you start thinking about
poverty, sustainability, and how your skills
can make a difference, your worldview
changes,” Johnson says. “It’s energizing
to see how students grow throughout
their involvement in the organization.”
A five-year commitment
Five EWB members traveled to a
village in Belize for two weeks this
summer for a “first contact” visit.
Once there, they learned the needs
of households and the community by
preparing meals, tending gardens, and
caring for children. Living with them
and participating in their lives this way,
they found the villagers were greatly
concerned about clean water, clean
cooking energy, household gardening,
and creating jobs.
A future project in EWB plans is to
create a bus stop, a source of pride for the
community and especially important for
villagers needing medical care. “Without
this mode of transportation,” Johnson
explains, “many villagers who are sick
don’t seek the medical care they need.
And those who do go to the hospital
have to endure harsh weather, which
can lead to greater illness, especially in
pregnant women.”
ISU students Mary McLoughlin (center) and Nathan Johnson (right) lived and worked
with the Novelo family in Belize to gain an appreciation for local life and needs.

4. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FALL 2009 > INNOVATE 17
Additionally, the group will focus
on improvements to the village school
such as continuing a literacy program,
developing a health program, and building
a school garden for a feeding program,
using solar fruit dryers to extend the shelf
life of the food grown in the garden.
As new members join, they hope
to meet requests for projects in Haiti,
Rwanda, and Tanzania. Yet, while the
group works on as many projects as
possible, EWB is careful to ensure it
can maintain a five-year commitment
to areas where they plan to implement
engineering solutions.
“We have an important responsibility
to educate villagers about their options so
they can develop accurate expectations
of our work,” Johnson says. “This
educational component can take a long
time, but it is crucial as we work to
maintain a delicate balance between the
politics and perceptions that surround
the work we do.”
Mobilizing worldwide service
For the past three years, student
members of EWB’s peer organization,
Engineers for a Sustainable World
(ESW), have been working on several
development projects, including
household energy and water harvesting
in the Kamuli District of Uganda, where
they learned first-hand how appropriate
technologies can help areas lacking
electricity or clean drinking water.
The students are now extending that
knowledge to assist the villages of Purkal
and Jaspur in northern India. There, in
collaboration with EWB at Kansas State,
theDehradunInstituteofTechnology(DIT)
in India, and Purkal Youth Development
Society, an Indian NGO, they will work on
solar street lighting, solar fruit dryers, and
rainwater harvesting.
Members of the several groups met
for the first time in India last spring
to share their research and ideas,
assess the sites, and begin engineering
solutions for the projects. Divided into
student teams, each had representatives
from the different universities.
According to Alok Bhandari, associate
professor of agricultural and biosystems
engineering, this sort of teamwork is an
essential part of developing sustainable
technologies.
“It can take awhile for a community
to accept a new way of doing things,”
Bhandari says. “In this case, DIT
students and faculty who are invested
in the projects will be onsite at all times,
helping villagers work through issues.”
Pride in meeting needs
Pasha Beresnev, a senior in civil
engineering, worked on the rainwater
harvesting project, exploring how villagers
might collect clean water for domestic
use and build water storage tanks for
farming. The teams researched filtration
systems for rooftop water harvesting and
scouted locations for large-scale units
requiring space for two tanks, one for
sedimentation and one for storage.
The students faced an unanticipated
challenge in the landscape of the area.
The village was located on a hill in an
area prone to earthquakes, with limited
flat areas for large water storage. That’s
where having multiple perspectives on
the issue made a difference.
“Because there were new ideas and
opinions always being shared,” Beresnev
notes, “we left India encouraged that we
had a strong foundation to begin building
our prototypes.” Students from each
university will now begin developing
solutions to test, he says, with plans to
implement the best solutions in the near
future.
As a faculty member, Bhandari has
been involved in several service-learning
projects. With each project, he is amazed
at how much students learn in the field,
and how they come to appreciate that
their work means something to someone.
“When you work to improve the quality
of life for people, you are changing local
economics and creating sustainable
approaches for generating wealth,”
Bhandari says. “That’s something
students and faculty can take pride in—
but with the understanding that, while we
have success in one place, there are so
many more that need our attention.” ▲
Alok Bhandari (right) speaks to American and Indian university students, along with
director G.K. Swamy (center) and children from the Purkal Youth Development Society.