Today, after a quick breakfast in the Rotterdam hotel, we visited TU Delft, the largest technical university in the Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, and design, so it was a perfect place for us to visit, as many people on this trip are studying engineering, including me.

The first place we went to when we got to the university was the Green Village. The Green Village is a place that engineers and innovators can come to build and test out their ideas. They call it a “Field Lab for Sustainable Innovation.” People are able to come up with an idea, get a piece of land to test it on, and try to make their sustainability related ideas a reality with having to abide by less rules and building regulations than they would have to outside of the Green Village. It is also a great place for engineers to come together to exchange and explain their ideas. Some of the things we saw in the village included some energy efficient housing with solar panels and green roofs, interesting charging platforms for electric bikes, bricks made out of cow manure, and a 3d printed concrete piece of equipment to be used with sewage. These are all very sustainable. For example, the 3d printed concrete thing saves materials because it was precisely printed so that concrete didn’t have to be wasted.

After visiting the Green Village, we went to a “Fresk” workshop, where we learned about climate change. The “Fresk” part of the workshop was making a collage of a group of cards that each of our groups were given. We had to sort these climate change related cards in a timeline. It all began with human activities and ended with possible future outcomes if things continue how they are, like famine, war, and a total decline in human health. This was a bleak thing to learn about, but it is important, as it is the direction that we as humans are going to be heading if we don’t look closer at what we can do to help. Paying attention to sustainability is a big step in the right direction.