Photo By Master Sgt. Tracy DeMarco | Utilizing a poster of surveying rod readings, Darren Richardson, the United States...... read more read more
Subscribe
FARAH PROVINCE, Afghanistan — At what should have been the end of their academic day, 27 Farah Agriculture and Veterinary Science High School and Institute students received unannounced guests.
Darren Richardson, the United States Department of Agriculture advisor for the Farah Provincial Reconstruction Team, journeyed to the school to teach an applied Math class.
He entered the classroom after briefly meeting with Fazal Ahmad Shirzi, the deputy director of the institute. Richardson then quickly began setting up the surveying tools he demonstrated to the students in a field near the campus in October 2009. He asked the students if they remembered taking rod readings in the field and an Afghan interpreter with the PRT translated the question.
"Balai," the students said, which means 'yes' in Dari.
"That was the fun part," Darren said with a smile.
Immediately recognizing his American teacher, Naqibullah, a 20-year-old student who hopes to some day become an agricultural engineer in Afghanistan, raised his hand and asked what the results were from the rod readings.
Richardson answered, "That's what we're going to go over today."
Building on the previous class, Richardson showed the students how to analyze the 133 ground elevation readings they plotted, Oct. 25, 2009. He provided handouts and walked the students through finding the average rod reading. Richardson said, "I'm an old man so I'll use a calculator."
Several of the students whipped out their cell phones and began tallying the columns of numbers. However, Nasir, an 18-year-old student who sat at the front of the class, was calling out the sums of each column quicker than Richardson could punch the numbers into his calculator.
"It was nice to see their heads down and watch them all trying to get the numbers right," said Richardson.
Once the numbers were crunched, Richardson made sure the students understood how the average elevation of the field is then compared to each rod reading to produce a "cut field sheet", a guide for removing or adding dirt to level a field.
The next step after this class would be for the students to actually level the field, a task that was already accomplished on Dec. 1, 2009, by a contractor hired by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The field can now be irrigated more efficiently with less water.
As planned, because the students and faculty have successfully learned how to use the surveying level, tripod and rod, the equipment was donated to the institute by the USDA. Richardson will suggest that the class use the equipment to assess how well the contractor levelled the field on Dec. 1.
"Thank you," Richardson said as he prepared to leave the classroom. "I'm very impressed with your knowledge."
In the future, the USDA plans to teach another series of classes at the institute with the surveying equipment on irrigation pipeline design with an end goal of installing a water sprinkler system in the campus soccer field.
| Date Taken: | 01.12.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 01.18.2010 23:30 |
| Story ID: | 44083 |
| Location: | FARAH PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 323 |
| Downloads: | 251 |
This work, To sum it all up, by MSgt Tracy DeMarco, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
