My Field Trip to the Water Treatment Plant

For reasons that I can't explain, for the second year in a row I led 16 Freshman on a local field trip.   The students didn't know who I am and didn't want to speak to me.  I introduced myself to two students from China and forced them to listen to my "elevator talk" about my new book on China's urban environmental quality dynamics.  They feigned interest for a little while.

UCLA asked me to go on this trip to make sure that the number of students who got on the bus to go to the Water Treatment Plant equaled the number of students who got off the bus when we returned!  I am a camp counselor.

Here are two photos from the trip,  What you see below isn't "chocolate milk".

Here are some UCLA first year students in hard hats.

I am a caring Professor.

I learned two pieces of economics.  First, the ratio of capital to labor ratio at the treatment plant is huge.  Millions of dollars of expenditure on pipes and treatment per worker.  Only 75 people work there.  We also learned that very few women work there.