FARMINGTON -- A University of Maine at Farmington student from Waterville has returned from traveling to Kaoma, Zambia, as part of an undergraduate research project she is doing on drinking water safety.

No computers, no phones, no electricity, no running water -- those are the conditions that Abby Pettitt experienced while traveling with her faculty adviser, David Heroux, a UMF assistant professor of chemistry and member of WISE-Zambia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families and communities in developing countries.

The water safety project is aimed at giving the people of Kaoma a better understanding of healthy drinking water with an ultimate decrease in water-borne disease.

Pettitt, a senior with a double major in biology and psychology and a concentration in pre-med, traveled to the southern African village for the month of June to test water sources and storage devices for possible contamination. She also worked on investigating different methods of water treatment and how to use the results to show the residents how to treat water prior to consumption.

In response to pervasive world water quality issues, her project is testing for E. coli, a standard marker of the presence of unsanitary water and a strong indicator of possible further contamination, including cholera and typhoid fever, according to Pettitt.

Heroux also spent time working with the Kaoma Children's School, a community facility that offers a free education to more than 700 area students from grades 1 to 9. His focus was to help increase the school's science resources and open the world of microscopic study to its students by introducing microscopes.

As part of his work, he introduced the students to basic lesson plans on ways to maintain healthy water quality and actions they can take to share what they have learned about drinking water safety with their families.