Between the 25th of June and the 14th of July, 2022, the University of Bucharest hosted the second edition of the CHANCE Program in Romania, organized by Penn State University and the University of Bucharest in collaboration with the CIVIS Consortium, of which UB is a part.
Entitled “Global Conservation: Environmental Challenges Facing the Danube River”, CHANCE 2022 brought together 10 students from the University of Bucharest and 10 students from Penn State University, USA. This programme represented both for the students and for the Romanian and American teachers who guided them during this three weeks of activities, an opportunity to learn new things about the Danube and water management, but also to establish close ties, which they are convinced will lead to future collaborations in the field.
Having a unique and complex format, CHANCE 2022 took place on several stages and included, on the one hand, theoretical activities and courses organized and hosted by the Faculty of Biology of the University of Bucharest and, on the other hand, a series of activities of land, carried out on the Danube and in the Delta. At the same time, the students traveled, during the last days of the event, to the Sinaia Zoological Station of UB and to the archaeological site of Sultana, in Călărași.
Divided into five mixed groups, the 20 Romanian and American students worked around five major themes as follows: Environmental Chemistry – Nutrient Overload, Ecology and Taxonomy – Aquatic Biodiversity, Land Use Changes, Water Quality and Microplastics and Microbiological Indicators of Water Pollution.
About all of this, about intercultural connections and exchanges, but also about how much these intense days influenced them both in terms of professional training and personally, we talked with six of the participants in the CHANCE Program in Romania, 2022 edition: Dr. Jacqueline McLaughlin, Professor of Biology at Penn State University and CHANCE Founding Director (since 2004), and Prof. Univ. Dr. Carmen Postolache, dean of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Bucharest and director of the CHANCE Program in Romania, as coordinator of the event, as well as with students Brooke Goggins, Samar Latefa and Austin Gaydos, from Penn State University, and with Ana-Maria Arsene from the University of Bucharest.
The video material resulting from the discussion we had with the six participants at CHANCE 2022 can be accessed with just one click here.