| Intensive Course 2006 | |
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On a beautiful morning at the beginning of October, the students and faculty of Atmospheric Aerosols and Health headed into the Sierra Mountains for a five day intensive course. Upon arriving the group was greeted by the smell of pine in the air, acrobatic squirrels and some seriously good food. Before they could say, "Woah, there's dessert!?", the students were divided into two teams. Armed with coffee and chocolate mousse cake, students were versed on the fundamentals of team problem-solving by Professor Valerie Leppert from UC Merced. Next came the challenge: each group needed to develop a pilot plan to reduce illnesses from air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley using a one million dollar grant. To accomplish this task, the students were given 4 days, internet access and the expertise of six tutorial presenters. The teams would then compete for the fictitious one million dollar grant by presenting their plans to the faculty at the end of the course. The next morning sleepy-eyed students and faculty sipped coffee and discussed the swirling fog clinging to the lake. Quickly getting down to business, the next three days went by in a flash, with morning tutorials on topics from public health to atmospheric particles, afternoons devoted to group work and team building, and the occasional break to look over the lake to contemplate the fog. At the end, the two groups went head to head to present their projects. The winning team proposed a novel study to examine how improving indoor air quality in elementary schools would affect the incidence and severity of childhood asthma. For their work they were awarded a bag of chocolate-covered almonds until the million dollar check could be mailed. With the Intensive Course successfully completed, the AAH students returned to their home campuses to work on their research and AAH breadth course work. Where's our next stop? Santa Cruz for the annual TSR&TP symposium on April 20 - 21! To learn more on the 2006 AAH Intensive Course, and to view the PowerPoint presentations given by the tutorial speakers, visit the course website at: |
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