Kicking Off Spring Quarter!

A lot has changed since our last post, largely due to the large historical moment that is currently occurring internationally.  With the developments to COVID-19 in the United States, these shifts have led to Stanford Campus urging students to return home and a dispersal of our team around the world.  For the first couple of weeks since it was announced that Stanford Spring Quarter would be entirely remote, the team was working on settling down and returning home in a short period of time.  Booking flights, packing, and saying goodbyes were cut short and had to be done in a timely manner. 

After things had settled a bit for our team members, in late March, we had a check in call and discussed the best ways to proceed.  The team was committed to our project, and we all wanted to continue with our investigation.  Despite this dedication, our project work must take major shifts to accomodate the developments. Unfortunately, with the pods and their husks left on campus in the lab, there is limited access for the team to continue to develop our production apparatus.  Additionally, with a remote platform, communication and collaboration have become more difficult. 

Moving forward, we are focusing on streamlining our research process and creating a testing baseline, focusing on robust research within four main themes: cultural and historical background in Ghana, geographical context with regards to soil and water quality, in depth understanding of standard testing protocol of biochar, water, and soil, research into current testing practices, and practical and affordable testing systems for baseline studies.  Over the first half of the quarter, the team will focus primarily on research to develop a strong baseline for investigation.  The second half of the quarter will place an emphasis on testing, ordering tests to individuals' locations in order to start control/baseline testing for further comparison. 

The TCHO Team is eager to continue our work and grateful for all that we have learned from this process. As we proceed, we are thinking critically about the timliness and relevance of our project for our stakeholders, as well as the relationships we have built with one another and our partners.  We hope to continue to treat these relationships with utmost importance moving forward, keeping health and safety our top priority.