At home, my parents always yelled at my brother and me when we'd carelessly leave lights, fans, or computers running unused. In school, I've listened to endless lectures about environmental protection, recycling, and energy conservation. Not much of it actually registered. Talks about issues such as the environment have been done to death in my and my classmates' lives — more dreaded than looked forward to, regarded more with boredom than with concern. But recently, I took part in the Global Challenge, and my attitude has completely changed.
The Global Challenge is an international science competition that invites proposals to solve global warming through projects using concepts of science, math, and business management. The project is submitted by a team of international students made up of two American citizens and two from anywhere else in the world. The competition for 2007 had over 2,600 participants from over 50 countries. I was part of the team that won the overall top score in 2007's Global Challenge, and my teammates and I were given scholarships of $1,350 and an all-expense-paid trip to the University of Vermont to attend the Governor's Institute of Vermont (GIV) Engineering Summer Institute.
Merely understanding our project as a bunch of “science geeks" wasn't good enough; we needed to put it across in a way that the lay public could understand.
I joined the Global Challenge thinking I'd get some valuable experience in research science, and that I'd have something impressive to put on a college application. I definitely got that … and in the process had loads of fun doing the project! Because it dealt not only with science, but with business planning, my teammates and I realised that we weren't just doing some high school project on a topic our teachers gave us. We were getting involved in discussing ideas that could actually make a difference, and communicating those ideas to our peer group and beyond. The experience highlighted the need for engineering solutions to environmental problems, but it also demonstrated the need to communicate these ideas effectively.
In the course of this project and the week I spent at GIV, I realised just how important communication is where science in concerned. Merely understanding our project as a bunch of “science geeks" wasn't good enough; we needed to put it across in a way that the lay public could understand. A person who has never studied chemistry wouldn't understand the equations that lead to release of greenhouse gases, but it isn't any less important for her to understand why they are bad for the environment and what she can do to help. For me, this realisation was a lot more than a passing thought.
Don't try this at home! GIV Engineering Institute teacher Tom Tailer (laying on the table) demonstrates the equation Pressure = Force/Area by letting a student hit the cement block on his stomach with an axe.
The reason my classmates and I had looked at lectures on environmental protection as uninteresting wasn't because the subject itself was boring, or because we were a bunch of bratty children of the 21st century – interested only in high heels and Brad Pitt! At GIV, I heard lectures and presentations on the same issues, and I wasn't in the least bit bored! I would like to think that there was no difference in my attitude … the difference was in the way I was being talked to. At school, for instance, we had learnt from textbooks and through lectures that pressure equals force divided by area. At GIV, Mr. Tom Tailer had a whole different way of teaching the same thing: he lay supine on a table with a cement block on his stomach, while one of the students hit it with an axe from the top. In this way, he showed us that because the surface area of the block was large, he didn't get hurt, while if that force had been on the top of a knife, it would have killed him. A very dramatic and very effective way of impressing a concept!
Today, when there is such a need for scientific solutions to environmental problems, it is more important than ever to make science interesting and exciting to students.
Today, when there is such a need for scientific solutions to environmental problems, it is more important than ever to make science interesting and exciting to students. Programs like the engineering institute at GIV and projects such as the Global Challenge are changing the way students approach science and engineering, by getting students involved through research rather than textbook learning. They are trying to communicate the need for environmental concern differently, and for me, it worked great! Now, when I turn out the light, the fan or the computer I don't do it because I'd get yelled at if I didn't. I do it because my Global Challenge experience showed me I really can actively work in both big and little ways to solve the problem of global warming.
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Click the link below to see news coverage of the GIV.