Waterloo graduates take on Lake Erie's algal blooms

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Team ImPONDerable

 Jill Crumb, Sylvie Spraakman and Nicole McLellan,

For the women in ImPONDerable, AquaHacking started out as an opportunity to meet other women passionate about the challenges facing Lake Erie; none of them imagined their idea would take them to the AquaHacking summit in September.

Sylvie Spraakman, and her team members Jill Crumb and Nicole McLellan, are members of the ImPONDerable team – one of the finalists in AquaHacking 2017. ImPONDerable's idea is to develop a citizen science monitoring kit and app that would inform citizens about the current state of Lake Erie’s waters and help collect data from all across the Great Lake. Taking their inspiration from microfluidic devices used in the medical industry, the group is working on developing a small test kit that contains removable cartridges with colour-change test strips that citizens can use to receive real-time water quality information that they can share on the app with other users.

“ said Sylvie Sprakman, Environmental Engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo. “Our idea could potentially deliver useful information to users and help scientists access spatially-varied data on algae presence, harmful toxins and nutrients.”

We wanted to connect with citizens and provide something that would be useful for them. Too often citizens and visitors of Lake Erie are alerted when it’s not safe to go in the water, but rarely are they told when it is safe,”

Team ImPONDerable at aquahacking semi finals
The team, made up of University of Waterloo graduates, varies in expertise; Jill Crumb is a senior ecologist with experience monitoring algal blooms in Lake Erie and working in water treatment plants. She works very closely with water quality issues and the citizens they’re targeting as the user group of this monitoring kit.

” said Jill. “Often times citizens and visitors who see green in the water automatically think it’s a toxic algal bloom and avoid the water, which not be necessary. Our kit will hopefully help mitigate some of this.”

“I think more education around Lake Erie’s algal blooms and water toxicity is needed for the citizens of the Great Lake,

The team has been working hard through the summer trying to create a working prototype that will be presented to the judges at the AquaHacking Summit on September 13, 2017 in Waterloo.

Want to see these ladies in action? Save your spot for the summit!