Richard returned from a successful trip to Balan, Haiti, where he worked with Sustainable Energy Access for Haiti, a Tufts University student group, to install a 1.4 kW solar array and a lot of lights, fans, and outlets.  He mentored the team on technical system details, electrical wiring, and user training.  This marked the first public lighting in the community of 20,000 people!  See a few photos from the trip here.
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We returned from a scouting trip around Panama, where we visited a bunch of project sites and planned the upcoming March trip.  We decided to focus on the town of Portobelo, where the community has had major problems with clean drinking water.  The clinic staff told us that the vast majority of cases they see result from pathogens in the drinking water.  They have a sedimentation tank that is badly in need of repair/redesign.  We will be making the tank usable, adding a chlorination module, and working with the high school to keep the system in working order once we leave.  The educational component is critical to the project's success: failure to maintain the sedimentation tank is the reason we will be working in Portobelo.
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A recent article in the New York Times ("Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard)") discusses the surprising rate of American college students changing majors from the science and engineering fields (between 40% and 60% change their minds about pursuing STEM majors!).  The main point is that while the course work is indeed hard, the big factor in pushing students away is due to a lack of applied instruction.  As the author puts it, "students learn more by grappling with open-ended problems, like creating a computer game or designing an alternative energy system, than listening to lectures."  Even though a hands-on approach is more expensive and tome consuming compared to a lecture format, the impact of working with your hands and seeing your effort result in something useful is well worth it.
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It's official!  The application for the program is now available here.  Fill it out before December 31st, and we will select up to 8 participants for our March  2012 trip.  We will be based in Palmas Bellas, a small community on the Carribean coast, and venture out into the nearby villages.  With a name like "beautiful palms," you know it's going to be great.
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Check out our program page for information on our new program in sustainable project design!  More details are yet to come, so sign up for email updates to not miss anything.  If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.  We're looking forward to working with you in Panama!  - Future Scientist staff
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And we're off! 10/27/2011
 
Welcome to the new Future Scientist site.  We've been revamping the organization's focus in order to make our goals and approach more obvious and more beneficial to the communities we work with.  Here are a couple things we're really excited about:

1) We are expanding to Panama in early 2012 and El Salvador if things go well in the summer of 2012
2) We developed a program in sustainable project design: come work with us in Panama!  More details to follow, but the basics can be found on the linked page.
3) We are working on an international medical rotation program for med students that would start in the summer of 2012.  It will integrate with the program in sustainable project design and will show participants not only the clinical aspects of disease but also its causes and how it can be reduced through education and community action.

Many more updates to come, so stay in touch.
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