Engineers Without Borders

General Meeting 4/15/09

April 16, 2009 at 6:30 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

Elections will be initiated today, candidates will give short speeches  and answer questions. They will also submit a summary of their speech to be posted online on the voting page.
Candidates:

• President: Scott Crook
• Vice President- Adam August, Jessica Varin
• Treasurer: Lyndsey Croghan
• Secretary: Nick Moses, Michelle Adlong

Voting and speech summaries can be found on the EWB webpage

Presentation: Evan Miles presented on his trip to Israel

• Members of the GeoClub and Hydrophiles went to Israel for two weeks around Spring Break.
• They studied issues regarding land, water, and conflict
• There is a stark contrast between old and new, i.e. the modern city of Tel Aviv next to 3000 year old Jaffa.
• They saw the remains of Jericho, believed to be the first major city on the planet at 10000 years old.
• The scale of geography is much different than here. The whole country is very small, it only took a couple couple days to drive around almost all of it.
• Different nations over time have occupied this area throughout time, and everything historical weight. For example, all three major monotheistic religions have dominated and added onto a church built over the (now known to be false) burial site of King David.
• The difference in water management can be seen from space, as Israel is much greener than its neighbors.
• They saw examples of Roman city drainage and water planning, also a desert fortress supplied by an aqueduct
• Dew collection was used in the ancient city of Avedat to supply water.
• Ancient people also used water tunnels under Jerusalem to water the city.
• Interestingly, despite all of the tension in the region, no nations have any disputes about water rights.