Engineers without Borders

Over the second week of May, we were lucky enough to have all our Year 7 science classes participate in a workshop run by the Monash University chapter of Engineers without Borders.

Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) is a member- based, community organisation that creates social value through engineering. Through partnership and collaboration, they focus on developing skills, knowledge and appropriate engineering solutions particularly within third world environments. Their School Outreach program sends teams of trained EWB volunteers into schools to run creative, hands-on workshops designed to open young people’s minds to the challenges facing developing countries. They also highlight career options available to engineers and technical professionals and the power of humanitarian engineering to create positive change.

The workshop, Water Filtration - how we create clean water systems, was based on their Cambodian program and linked to our present Science unit, Separating Mixtures. Students were assigned into teams, given a design brief and working within certain resource and budgetary constraints designed and built a simple water purification system.

Here are a few student reflections

On Wednesday the 8th of May, the Engineers without borders taught us how to make a simple water cleaner. They each gave groups a certain amount of money and what country you were. Depending on how wealthy that country was, that determined how much money you had, an example being my group who was Ethiopia with only $20 (the least amount of money given, second poorest being Vietnam  with$40). Then we had to follow the instructions on the sheet they gave us on what materials we would need to buy for the construction of the filter, unfortunately the poorer countries couldn’t read making it much harder. We could ask for money from richer groups but majority of them wouldn’t give anything. After a lot of begging to no avail we started to buy, we got what we could Fortunately halfway through buying we found $20 dropped on the floor buy a richer country, this helped greatly because it doubled our starting amount of money. To make the filter we used a mixture of many things, like the frame of the filter, which was half a water bottle upside down, so the filtered water could come out where the lid usually was. With no instructions beside for the diagram, we bought rocks and sand, along with a few other things and put them in. While pouring the sand in, majority of it got to the bottom, which would and did make the water foggier since it was the last thing the water would pass through. After construction, the Engineers poured the very mucky dark water in each bottle. The result was surprising due to the fact our water was very similar, and in some cases even lighter than the richer  countries water. Overall, the activity was fun, and we got to learn numerous things about things engineers do and what type of engineers there are, like mechanical or civil engineering. Personally, I thought It was an amazing way to show engineering and I would definitely do it again.

Liam 7D

We learned about the different kinds of engineering, like mechanical, aero dynamic and robotic. Engineers Without Borders in the USA builds a better world through engineering projects that empower communities to meet their basic human needs but it also incorporates other wealthy countries, like Australia. Engineering without borders (EDW) makes it possible for people to live more easily and comfortably because we allow people to do more, with better certainty, less effort, less consuming of material resources and less energy. Therefore, we did an experiment about draining water, which showed us making the water filtration out of only a few resources. We were given a sheet and money on the sheet there was our country name (Indonesia)   and   were   given only$50. I know that seems only a littleamount, but other countries balance was only $20 but then again there was the occasional countries with higher amounts. On the sheet wasn’t only our country name it was accompanied on the sheet by the prices to all the martials we were given. Surprisingly we won for the cleanest water of course you could not drink out of it but it was still the cleanest water.

Stella 7D

They did really well on explaining what we had to do and having a great learning environment by making the activities lots of fun. I learnt so many new things and I would love to do the activity again.

Jade C. 7D

In this incursion, we learnt multiple things. First we learned about the different types of engineers such as a Mechanical engineer and a Civil Engineer. We then moved onto the main part of the incursion, making a filter. We were given different amounts of fake money and a bottle each. We could then “buy” our materials to make the filter. I learnt a lot about how filters work and really enjoyed the incursion as a whole.

Harrison O. 7H

I really enjoyed the Engineers Without Borders program because we got to work in groups and tried something different. I also liked how we had certain challenges within the main challenge e.g. the budget that we had, the price difference for the countries and the language barrier for some groups. Plus, I liked how we had to plan first so you are prepared for jobs and tasks. I liked the introduction to the lesson because they gave us some good information on engineers and what type of engineers there are and what they do. I also liked that they were there so they could give us one on one advice in person.

Fintan 7D