Sustainability

The Challenge: How Sustainable Are You?

Welcome to the BSI National Science and Engineering Week Challenge

At the start of the 21st century our planet has never been under so much ecological pressure. Growing populations and booming economies mean that we are consuming the Earth’s natural resources faster than it can replenish them. Not only that, but our continuing dependence on fossil fuels is leading to potentially disastrous global climate change.

Unless we change the way we make use of our planet’s resources, the outlook for humanity is not good.

For this reason BSI chose sustainability as its theme for 2007’s National Science and Engineering Week, and we created quizzes and three challenges.

To see what sustainability challenge we've organised for 2008’s National Science and Engineering Week, click here.

There is a choice of three different practical, problem solving challenges which focus on making the society we live in more sustainable.

The challenges are:

Challenge 1: Let’s Do Lunch
Design a piece of sustainable food packaging that not only keeps your food of choice fresh, but also helps to protect the world’s resources.

Challenge 2: The Sustainable School
Design an energy efficient sustainable classroom.

Challenge 3: Mass Transit
Design a new mass transit system that will get people out of their cars and onto public transport.

Each challenge is supported by activities and detailed lesson plans . These can either be downloaded as PDF files for printing or viewed on line as web pages.

If you choose Challenge 1: Let’s do lunch

Your Task Is:
Design a piece of sustainable food packaging that not only keeps your food of choice fresh, but also helps to protect the world’s resources.

Using the ideas that your team worked up for Section 4 “Let’s Do Lunch” of your activity sheet put a proposal together of no more than 500 words describing:

What type of packaging you are planning to replace (e.g. A cereal bar wrapper)
Why you believe that this type of packaging should be changed
What the functions of the old packaging material are that you wish to retain
What your new packaging material will be
Why you have chosen this new packaging material
How your new packaging material adds to sustainability (it should be in some way: reducible, re-usable and / or recyclable)
Any other benefits you can foresee to using this new type of packaging.

Create a diagram that illustrates the packaging material showing:

The functionality of the materials being used
The sustainability of the materials being used
Any other benefits of using this material.

(Optional) Create a prototype of your new packaging material and take a photograph of it to include in your entry.

If you choose Challenge 2: The Sustainable School

Your Task Is:
Design an energy efficient sustainable classroom.

Using the ideas that your team worked up for Section 3 “The Sustainable Classroom” of your activity sheet put a proposal together of no more than 500 words describing:

What different types of energy are used in the classroom every day (e.g. Heating, lighting etc.) and how they are supplied to your class
How these types of energy are being wasted
How you could lower energy consumption in the class room
How you could lower energy wastage in the classroom
What changes to the classroom you will be making
Why you believe that these changes will help to save energy
Any other benefits you can foresee by using your new design for a sustainable classroom.

Create a diagram that illustrates your sustainable classroom showing:

The current energy usage and wastage in your classroom
The changes that you will make to the classroom to make it sustainable
Any other benefits of using this material

If you choose Challenge 3: Mass Transit

Your Task Is:
Design a new mass transit system that will get people out of their cars and onto public transport.

Using the ideas that your team worked up for Section 4 Mass Transit of your activity sheet put a proposal together of no more than 500 words describing:

What the main environmental benefits of introducing your particular mass transit system in your community will be
What sort of mass transit system you would introduce (buses, trams, trains etc.) and why
What type of energy you will be using to run your mass transit system
Why people will use your system, and how you will persuade them to leave their cars at home
How many people you hope to travel on your system and reasons why
Any other benefits you can foresee for introducing the new mass transit system.

Create a diagram(s) that illustrate(s) your mass transit system showing:

The area you hope to cover with the system, and why you have chosen these routes (e.g. traffic hotspots)
How many people you expect to travel on your system throughout the day
Any other benefits of your mass transit system.

Whatever you decide on you need to be creative and imaginative. Science and engineering are all about creativity and imagination and with challenges ahead of us like climate change new ideas are needed to help solve new problems.