CLEAR hosts school students and more for 2023 Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit

Last week, CLEAR trainees participated in the 18th annual Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit conference. CLEAR trainees Brendan O'Leary, Colleen Linn and Halima Salah and others organized a tour of our Lumigen Instruments Center and the bioswale at Linsell House on campus, along with Chemical Analysis Core co-lead Judy Westrick and Research Translation lead Rahul Mitra. Sixty-eight students from Detroit schools attended the tour and the organizers shared the work of CLEAR on VOCs and other environmental pollutants. In the afternoon, Dr. Mitra facilitated a discussion with Amarachukwu (Amara) Ifeji about environmental justice and youth leadership, with 30 school students.

On Day 2 of the conference, Research Translation lead Rahul Mitra facilitated a lunch keynote discussion on fair wages for food workers, and then a CLEAR team comprised of Brendan O'Leary, Colleen Linn, Halima Salah, Jennifer Straughen, and Lyke Thompson led a community workshop on volatile organic compounds. The workshop discussed what VOCs are, why they are a concern in Detroit, and common sources and strategies to avoid household exposure. Zines, created by Halima Salah, were also passed out to workshop attendees, where they were encouraged to take notes and jot down questions during the presentation.