Today marks the first day with professional activities on the trip in Amsterdam. Our morning consisted of a lecture about the sustainability of air travel by Karel Bockstael. Karel worked for over twenty years at a Dutch airline called KML. His now main focus is to develop the sustainability of air travel. His work in the field of sustainability stemmed from his time at KML. He has researched carefully how to fix the problem of emission from kerosene engines of larger passenger planes. He described how KML and other larger airline companies are looking towards alternative methods to kerosene such as battery powered engines and hydrogen-based fuel. However, these changes have yet to be implemented into the market because of the stressing of safety in commercial air travel. This is different to say that of larger companies in the United States such as delta that completely rely on kerosene driving fuel and have little to no plans of changing their methods in the future. This lecture overall provided a much needed insight to the applications of sustainability programs in a highly stressed field.
Our other endeavors today were to visit the Anne Frank house and complete the city scavenger hunt. The city scavenger hunt allowed the group to acquire a full insight on the city itself. What struck me most about touring the city on this scavenger hunt was how much residential apartment areas were in the city and the numerous amounts of parks. It reminded me in a way to New York City because of the lack of space from building to building. It is an extreme bonus to also have large amounts of walking and green areas in the city with the amount of parks that they have. Our final activity of the day the Anne Frank house provided very important information about the cities history. It was riveting and insightful to learn about the horrors of that time in Nazi occupied Europe and what Anne Frank had to go through as a Jewish child living at that time. The house had a guided tour full of original copies of her diary and the actual floors her and her family lived on. Ultimately the second day of the trip allowed us as a group to experience both the professional side of business and engineering and the historical aspects of the city.