Colombia is famous for its exotic fruits, delicious coffee and festive carnivals. However, many Colombian communities do not get to enjoy these luxuries, as they are faced with violence and food insecurity. The Can (Bio)sensing Tools be Used to Empower Communities Disproportionally Burdened by Environmental Contamination? Creative Inquiry project works with a disadvantaged community facing threats of industry created monocultures and ensuing water pollution issues in Colombia. The project is mentored by a diverse team—David Bahamon-Pinzon, a biosystems engineering graduate student, Dr. Eric McLamore, from the Department of Agricultural Sciences and Dr. Diana Vanegas, from the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Science.

El Tiple is a small village located in the southwestern part of the municipality of Candeleria, Colombia. It is rural and the residents lived on the crops they grew, until a sugarcane monocrop displaced some of the land used for local agriculture, used the water resources for irrigation and polluted the environment with the intensive use of fertilizers and aerial spraying. These practices not only impact local food availability but their water. High levels of pesticides contamination make the water dangerous to consume. The Creative Inquiry team is developing biosensors to help the residents monitor water quality.

The main goal of this Creative Inquiry project is to create an environmental surveillance program to support and empower the people of El Tiple. To achieve this, Bahamon-Pinzon leads the team to create biosensors that detect environmental pollutants in the water.

To customize the sensors for El Tiple, the team works with the community to understand the environment. Marissa Coll, a junior language and international health major, and Isabel Long, a senior language and international health major, are in charge of translating interviews and analyzing the local demographics, respectively. Coll translates Spanish interviews from a community leader in El Tiple so the team can understand the issues. Long focuses on community development by studying demographic information, such as size and growth, using the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) model, to better understand the community. “The most surprising thing is how multidimensional this project is. When I saw it, I was like ‘Oh cool. Water sensors,’ but then there’s community development and translating and trying to make it user friendly. There’s just so many aspects to it that I didn’t realize before I jumped in,” Long said.

They already have a functional sensor, but it is very complex and not user friendly. “We consider all characteristics of the community when we design the technology. We use low-cost materials, and facile fabrication methods. We want to have it user friendly, so it’s very context specific,” Bahamon-Pinzon said. Once they customize the sensors for El Tiple, they plan to develop educational programs for the community so they can use the technology long term.

The Creative Inquiry team met with residents of El Tiple to discuss the sensors, the impact of pollution and other issues to the community. Now, members of the community feel more informed and empowered in meetings with their government because they understand what is happening and can advocate for themselves and push for solutions.

This project not only affects the people of El Tiple, but also students in the Creative Inquiry project. “Even though I don’t live there, just being able to do this small labor of translating these interviews has been a really rewarding experience for me,” Coll said. The team recognizes what a large impact the project has on El Tiple, and how eventually it can be valuable for any community facing problems caused by monoculture crops and water pollution. This Creative Inquiry project demonstrates that knowledge truly is power.