NUWEE membership in the CPEA-ST/10081 TENOR international project consortium enabled students to attend the 7th International Summer School on Water.

TENOR means Toward Circular EcoNomy in Organic FaRming. The project aims to demonstrate how decentralized wastewater treatment can maximize circularity and resources utilization, while minimizing greenhouse gas emission related to wastewater transport. TENOR Living Lab facilitates collaboration of students, researchers, teachers, industrial and public stakeholders for evidence-based educational research and innovation.

Within the framework of the TENOR project, two students from NUWEE participated in the Summer School: PhD student Oleksiy Kozhushko and master student Volodymyr Besediuk.

Summer School consisted of studying two courses: ТНТ 311 Water Resources Management and Treatment Technologies (10 ECTS) and THT 312 Water Management in Cold Climate (5 ECTS).

Before the beginning of educational process there was an introductory meeting with lecturers and project team members at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), where professor Harsha Ratnaweera - head of Water Harmony team and Zakhar Maletskii - head of TENOR project team have made welcome lectures for participants. Overall number of participants was more than 90 persons from over 25 universities from 20 countries, in particular: 12 teachers from Asia and Africa, 14 teachers from USA, Canada, Denmark, 60 master students and PhD students and also project team of Summer School. After introductory lectures everyone was invited to a welcome dinner.

The first block of the Summer School was Water Management in Cold Climate course at University centre in Svalbard (UNIS) at Spitsbergen. At the same time, number of participants from southern countries were at educational course at University of South-East Norway (USN).

Svalbard is an island beyond the polar circle, close to the northern Pole. Population of Spitsbergen counts near 2,5 thousands people, at the same time population of polar bears counts more than 3 thousand. In the middle of summer average air temperature is near 5 degrees and the sun is shining round-the-clock, that is why it was really special and even exotic place for studying.

Studying was quite intensive: lectures were held every day from 9 to 17 o'clock on different relevant topics related to drinking water and wastewater treatment in cold climate areas. In particular: wastewater as one of the main pollutant of arctic aquatic resources, centralized system of wastewater treatment in cold climate areas, natural wastewater treatment systems in cold climate, decentralized system of wastewater treatment in cold climate, water supply in cold climate, modern wastewater treatment systems.

During the course all students were separated into 11 groups for addressing the issues of Longyear water management. Results were communicated by each group with speeches and presentations.

At the end of the course, students passed an online test. Students must prepare a research article for the OpenAcess resource to successfully complete the course and receive certificates.

During the course there was number of social activities, in particular excursion to the avia radars on the top of the mountain nearby, fossil-hunting, excursion to abandoned russian town Pyramida etc. Furthermore, there was time for common dinners on the seaside and inside of UNIS as well.

After the week of educational course all the students were participating in lecture course by program ТНТ 311 Water Resources Management and Treatment Technologies during 2 weeks.

In addition to lectures, practical and laboratory classes were performed. In practical classes students briefly learned STOAT software, which performs modeling of wastewater treatment plant. Labs were conducted separately and by groups of students. Classes were held in the laboratory with modern equipment, which allows carrying out experiments comfortably and qualitatively.

At the first laboratory session, students were given the task of determining the quality of the sample of water they received according to their variant. At the next lab students were divided into groups. The task was to determine the optimal dose of the coagulant. To complete the work, students had to make a report on laboratory work and compare their results with the results of other groups.

In addition to the lessons, excursions on drinking water and wastewater treatment plants in Oslo were organized. Their feature is that they are built in the rock. The excursions were conducted by an engineer of the company, who acquainted students with the technology used for water treatment.

Furthermore, students were provided with time for excursions in the city of Oslo. At first, the students visited the Holmenkollen ski jump area - the most popular tourist attraction in Norway and one of the most famous sport arenas in the world.

Students then traveled to Vigeland Park, the most famous park in Norway. The park covers an area of 30 hectares and has 227 sculptural groups that reflect the range of different human relationships.

At the end of the two-week training course, students had to pass an examination, which was conducted in the form of online tests. After completing the course, students must prepare a course paper, which could be developed according to established requirements using lecture material and English-language scientific literature. To do this, all the students had access to relevant sources of many scientific literature databases, in particular Scopus and Web of Science.

Article by Volodymyr Besediuk and Oleksii Kozhushko