Understanding water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) challenges and innovations in developing countries and underserved communities worldwide.
D-Lab Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) focuses on water/environment practices and innovations in low-income countries and underserved communities worldwide. Class time will balance learning core concepts through lectures, discussions, and student-led tutorials with project-based learning, in which teams or individuals propose their own idea or select an international or domestic WASH project to work on from a menu of options. Students are mentored through the process of bringing their project to fruition. The class emphasizes core WASH and water/environment principles, culture-specific solutions, tools for start-ups, appropriate and sustainable technologies, behavior change, social businesses, and building collaborative partnerships. The term project entails the opportunity to implement a WASH/environmental solution in a specific locale.
Lecturer Libby Hsu brings learnings from extensive field-based project work in countries such as Ethiopia, Colombia, El Salvador, and Cambodia. This class counts towards the Environment & Sustainability minor at MIT.