Students Will Present DVD Walking Tour of Hugh Moore Park Tuesday

In a prior Technology Clinic project, Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology, discusses potential hotel renovations with students Jessica Badger and Irshad Haji.

EASTON, Pa.(www.lafayette.edu), December 12, 2005 — A group of students will give their final presentation Tuesday on the walking DVD tour they developed to make the history of area technology come alive at Hugh Moore Park in Easton through images, graphics, narrative, and sound.

The Technology Clinic group will unveil its creation, entitled “The Buried Industries of Easton: A Portable Electronic Tour,” to Hugh Moore Park and National Canal Museum officials at 4 p.m. in Lafayette’s Jaqua Auditorium, Hugel Science Center room 103. (A second Technology Clinic will report Thursday on its work to help the borough of Weatherly, Pa., and its local Rotary Club rehabilitate a 19th-century locomotive factory.)

Those in attendance will include park and museum officials Ed Mooney, curator of exhibits, who served as chief liaison to the group; historian Lance Metz; Sonya Dollins-Colton, curator of education; Thomas Smith, director of public programs and collections manager; and executive director Robert M. Rudd.

The students worked with park and museum staff to gather information and images about the park site over the centuries and develop the elements of the DVD program. The tour covers the restored Lehigh Canal, the Locktender’s House Museum, 19th Century Industrial Ruins, and other historical structures. It will complement the Elaine and Peter Emrick Technology Center, which will house exhibits, archives, and classroom space.

Founded in 1986, Technology Clinic is a two-semester course that brings together students representing a variety of majors to solve the real-world problems of a business, non-profit organization, or government body. The facilitators for the park group are Dan Bauer, Technology Clinic director and professor of anthropology and sociology, and Lawrence Malinconico, associate professor of geology and environmental geosciences.

The students are Matthew Kemmerer ’06 (Kingston, Pa.), a computer science major; Tommaso Marsella ’06 (Woonsocket, R.I.), an anthropology and sociology major; Erik Parker ’06 (Quakertown, Pa.), a computer science major; Daniela Simova ’06 (Sofia, Bulgaria), who is pursuing a B.S. in biology and an A.B. with a major in economics and business; and Dogan Yiginer ’06(Cigli/Izmir, Turkey), who is pursuing a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an A.B. with a major in economics and business.

Recommendations from a Technology Clinic that concluded last spring are at the heart of a plan to improve the Easton and Phillipsburg riverfront area and invigorate the business climate using more than $6 million in grants from the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.

Other recent Technology Clinic projects have resulted in recommendations for improving traffic on Cattell Street and ideas for developing the North 3rd Street corridor at the foot of College Hill in Easton, an automobile tour on CD to boost tourism and local awareness of historical assets in Nazareth and its surrounding rural municipalities, a self-guided tour and other enhancements at Bachmann Publick House in downtown Easton, and improvements in the experiences of patients at the offices of doctors within Lehigh Valley Hospital Physicians Group.

Other projects in recent years have included a report on creating environmentally friendly hotels, which the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection posted on its web site; an interactive web site for the National Canal Museum in downtown Easton; a drunk-driving simulator at Easton’s Weller Center; recommendations for proposed uses of Bachmann Publick House; suggestions to improve fundraising for ProJeCt for People (formerly ProJeCt of Easton); recommendations on a learning center at the National Canal Museum; and a proposal for development in the Slate Belt.

Older projects have included:

• Promoting the Borough of Roseto, Pennsylvania
• Reviving Weatherly, Pennsylvania
• Promoting innovation in plant design for Lockwood Greene Engineering and Air Products
• Managing work and life at Merck & Co.
• Improving the organization of residence halls at Lafayette
• New applications for SERVAC vacuum excavation technology for Filtration Engineering and the Wilkra Company
• Measuring and improving patient satisfaction for Lehigh Valley Hospital Physicians Group