14 DAY TRIAL // According to officials at the Purdue University, a new ceremony will see the opening of an advanced water resources research facility at the university. The festivities will take place Saturday, October 16.
The civil engineering laboratory contains advanced hydrology and hydraulics facilities, which will be used by researchers for teaching, and also for conducting research into the various issues related to water resources.
The new building will be called The Christopher and Susan Burke Hydraulics and Hydrology Laboratory, and the ceremony inaugurating it will take place at the Purdue Civil Engineering Building.
“The new lab is equipped with ultra-modern facilities for preparing future civil engineers to address global water challenges,” explains Purdue official M. Katherine Banks.
She holds an appointment as the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor of Civil Engineering, and is also the Bowen Engineering Head of the university's Department of Civil Engineering.
“Among the key challenges faced by developing nations is the struggle to obtain clean water and maintain clean waterways,” Banks goes on to say.
“Purdue civil engineers are poised to find solutions,” she adds, saying that the lab will also contain a special “sensor-based wet-lab classroom,” in addition to an interactive waterfall.
According to experts, the advanced research lab took $1.65 million to build. Funds came from Purdue alumni Christopher and Susan Burke ($750.000), civil engineering alumnus Robert Shanks ($250,000), and the rest from Purdue and other alumni.
“The water feature will serve as an aesthetic reminder of the lab's function and also as the headwater to a working channel in which classroom experiments will be conducted,” says Banks.
“The channel will also be used as an outreach tool for visiting students and community members, illustrating fundamental concepts in water engineering,” she goes on to say.
“People frequently learn best by doing, and this laboratory will not only change course content but also change the way civil engineering classes are taught,” the Purdue official adds.
Experts at the university hope that this facility will turn into a teaching, research and outreach laboratory, that will be able to develop real-life applications in the fields of hydraulics and hydrology.
Students, for example, will have the possibility to double their conceptual lectures with computer models and also with hands-on experiments, all that within a single facility.