Start Date
6-6-2013 3:10 PM
End Date
6-6-2013 4:40 PM
Description
We report an ongoing multi-year engagement by a multidisciplinary team of engineering, science and humanities students, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, in a lake aquaculture environment with a local fisherfolk community. The genesis of the partnership, the effectiveness of the technology intervention and its influence on the community’s ability to plan and manage the lake resource, as well as an assessment (based on interviews) of the impact of the service learning opportunity on the involved students will be discussed. The geographical focus of the case study is the 1 km diameter Lake Palakpakin in the famous 7 Lakes area near San Pablo City, Laguna, Philippines, where a network of wirelessly connected water quality sensors – such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, turbidity – floating sensor platforms and solar powered fishpen aerators are being designed, deployed and maintained by a team of University researchers, government partners (ICTO-DOST), local fisherfolk and partners from Japan and Thailand. Other enabling technologies in use that require science-based research students include imaging by unmanned aerial vehicles, optical engineering, chemistry, aquaculture, environmental impact assessment tools and information technology – offering many opportunities for contribution and engagement by government and university teams. In addition, the site offered engagement opportunities for students and faculty from the humanities such as those interested in development studies and strategies for sustainable communities, even fine arts students interested in information design for effective communication. On the side of the local community, partnership with government and universities provide fisherfolk with heretofore unavailable lake resource management tools and a renewed confidence to contribute successful technology reference designs and their own experiences and self-developed best practices to other lakeside aquaculture communities grappling with similar water resource usage and management issues. The paper will describe this rich multi-stakeholder multi-disciplinary context of engagement and qualitatively describe its ongoing impact, the insights gained and the lessons learned.
Recommended Citation
Libatique, N., & Tangonan, G. (2013, June). Engaging empowered fisher-folk and local communities: Engineering, science and humanities students in a lake aquaculture service-learning environment. Paper presented at the 4th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning: Service-Learning as a Bridge from Local to Global: Connected world, Connected future, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.
Included in
Engaging empowered fisher-folk and local communities : engineering, science and humanities students in a lake aquaculture service-learning environment
We report an ongoing multi-year engagement by a multidisciplinary team of engineering, science and humanities students, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, in a lake aquaculture environment with a local fisherfolk community. The genesis of the partnership, the effectiveness of the technology intervention and its influence on the community’s ability to plan and manage the lake resource, as well as an assessment (based on interviews) of the impact of the service learning opportunity on the involved students will be discussed. The geographical focus of the case study is the 1 km diameter Lake Palakpakin in the famous 7 Lakes area near San Pablo City, Laguna, Philippines, where a network of wirelessly connected water quality sensors – such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, turbidity – floating sensor platforms and solar powered fishpen aerators are being designed, deployed and maintained by a team of University researchers, government partners (ICTO-DOST), local fisherfolk and partners from Japan and Thailand. Other enabling technologies in use that require science-based research students include imaging by unmanned aerial vehicles, optical engineering, chemistry, aquaculture, environmental impact assessment tools and information technology – offering many opportunities for contribution and engagement by government and university teams. In addition, the site offered engagement opportunities for students and faculty from the humanities such as those interested in development studies and strategies for sustainable communities, even fine arts students interested in information design for effective communication. On the side of the local community, partnership with government and universities provide fisherfolk with heretofore unavailable lake resource management tools and a renewed confidence to contribute successful technology reference designs and their own experiences and self-developed best practices to other lakeside aquaculture communities grappling with similar water resource usage and management issues. The paper will describe this rich multi-stakeholder multi-disciplinary context of engagement and qualitatively describe its ongoing impact, the insights gained and the lessons learned.