Celebrating over 15 years!
Since 1990, NEIWPCC, EPA, and the Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility have collaborated in the Youth and the Environment summer program in Lowell, Mass. The program, which is part of a national effort by EPA, stresses hands-on work experience and academic training to introduce disadvantaged inner-city high school students to professional opportunities in the environmental field. A particular emphasis is placed on careers in the wastewater industry, which is experiencing a shortage of young people entering its workforce. The participants are paid as they gain new knowledge, learn new skills, and find out about a rewarding career path.
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| 2007 - Youth and the Environment, Lowell |
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| YEP members with employees of the Lowell Wastewater Facility, 2007 |
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| 2006 - Youth and the Environment |
In 2005, the program hired five students to work daily at the wastewater treatment plant. During the eight-week program the students experienced all that a wastewater treatment plant has to offer, including pretreatment, maintenance, landscaping, and lab work. Four days a week, they worked at their designated stations, getting a diverse, hands-on education in water pollution control. In the afternoons, they gathered to hear lessons on wastewater treatment and other environmental issues. The lessons covered such topics as the water cycle, tide pools, water quality, water pollution and prevention, and microorganisms that live in water. One day a week, the students attended fun and educational field trips that related to what they were learning in Lowell. The group visited the New England Aquarium; the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire; the Squam Lake Natural Science Center in Holderness, New Hampshire; and the Ecotarium in Worcester, Massachusetts. The group also went to Stellwagen Bank in Massachusetts Bay for a whale watch, as well as visiting the Massachusetts Wastewater Authorities Deer Island wastewater treatment plant and EPA’s New England Regional Laboratory in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
For more information on the Youth and the Environment program, contact NEIWPCC's Mike Jennings at 978-323-7929.
Visit EPA's Youth and the Environment Program.