“My office is stacked to the ceiling with light bulbs,” says Dawn Densmore, Director of Outreach and Public Relations for the University of Vermont [1], College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences [2].
The current disarray of her workplace is not because she’s a pack rat, or even a particularly messy person. Dawn is storing the bulbs – CFLs, to be precise – in preparation for the massive Burlington and Winooski bulb blitz on Wednesday, July 2nd. High school students from around the world will deliver 3,700 free CFLs throughout the two cities in just three hours.
But these aren’t just any high school students; they are all participants of this year’s UVM/GIV Engineering Summer Institute [3]. An initiative of the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont [4] in association with the University of Vermont [5], the UVM/GIV Engineering Summer Institute [6] focuses on implementing sustainable engineering practises, and introduces students both to the University’s engineering programs and the potential they have to make a positive impact on the world through engineering.
“We want to produce an engineer who thinks holistically, who thinks full circle,” says Dawn.
A total of 127 students from high schools throughout Vermont and the United States, as well as China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Scotland and France, are enrolled in the 2008 UVM/GIV Engineering Summer Institute [7]. Participants include award recipients of the Global Challenge [8], a National Science Foundation [9] program that brings together US and international students to collaborate on developing unique, promising solutions to global issues.
UVM/GIV Engineering Summer Institute [10] participants will explore technology’s impact on society while working on an engineering project in one of four categories: Sustainable Energy Systems, Robotics, Aeronautical Engineering and Engineering Sustainability.
When Dawn and her colleague Thomas Tailer, co-director of the UVM/GIV Engineering Summer Institute [11] and a physics teacher at Mount Abraham High School [12], learned that Project Porchlight was coming to Vermont around the same time as the Summer Institute, they saw the opportunity to show the students first-hand the impact they can have on the environment. They committed participants in the Sustainable Energy Systems project to distributing free CFLs throughout Burlington and Winkooski on July 2nd.
“We have students coming from all over the world to study sustainable engineering with us,” says Thomas. “For these kids, it’s one thing to study and talk about it, it’s another to actually be able to go out and do it. So with Project Porchlight… we can go out and in three hours make a significant impact on the carbon footprint of two cities in Vermont. That’s the message that we want our students to get.”
Thomas and Dawn agree that the message can’t be spread soon enough. “Energy is becoming incredibly expensive,” says Thomas. “The faster we make this transition (to more energy-efficient products and practises), the better off everyone will be.”
Dawn feels that this transition is well within our power to achieve. “It’s amazing what we can accomplish, what one person can accomplish, if they inspire other people to do likewise,” she says. “Project Porchlight is an example of how one person with one vision has been able to make a substantial difference.”
UVM/GIV Engineering Summer Institute [13] participants will present their work at the Project Exhibition in the University Mall, South Burlington. The presentations take place on Saturday, July 5th between 10am and 3pm, and are open to the public free of charge.
Participants will be recognized for their hard work and innovation at the Student Recognition Ceremony. The event takes place July 5th between 7pm and 9pm at the Marsh Life Science Benedict Auditorium. Project Porchlight will be on hand to honour the students for their contribution.
PHOTO (left to right): Thomas, Dawn and Jean Olsen, Executive Director, Governor’s Institutes of Vermont [14].