Skip to main content

IGERT Story

Clean Energy Day with Garfield High School (LAUSD)

Description

As part of CGI’s outreach efforts, we visit high schools with the EnGen Roadshow. Clean Energy Day held on May 31, 2013 was our first outreach event where high school students visited our campus. In addition to the usual program, we held a hands-on water filtration experiment using common household goods such as cotton fabric, cotton balls, cardboard, and charcoal (activated carbon).

The high school students competed in groups to create their own water filter to filter out particles, including a glow in the dark pigment. Teams were taken to the CGI lab to view the results of their ability to remove the glow in the dark pigment.

Trainees led all aspects of this outreach event, from designing the demos and water filter challenge, providing guidance for each team, and judging the results. Teams were judged on their ability to remove particles (clarity of water), the volume of water filtered, as well as removal of smell as the source water was also contaminated with vinegar.