Today we got to visit TU Delft, a nearby public technical university that is the largest in The Netherlands. We started out by getting a tour of the Green Village, which is a living lab that provides space for the creation of sustainable projects and innovations. We learned about a bunch of the spaces, but it was clear that the people in charge of the innovations were able to come up with new solutions to conserve energy by using all of their resources. One example is the use of solar panels, which not only produce energy by absorbing sun rays but also prevent heat from coming into closed spaces while still allowing light in. Another thing they tested and found the right solution for was the material used for the ground. They wanted the ground material to let the water absorb so it was not on the surface, but not too far down that it was inaccessible. Their solution was using a layer of broken up sea shells, or another porous material with a type of stone on top that allowed the water to soak into ground while still being able to evaporate when the ground heats up, therefore giving it a cooling effect. There are also many things being worked on right now, including the 24/7 Energy Lab and the Pee to Plants project. No matter the project, the people at the Green Village know how to conserve and take advantage of natural resources!
After our tour of the Green Village, we were given free time to explore the campus and get lunch in one of their cafeterias. We decided to take a walk around the campus, which is filled with green spaces amongst all of the modern buildings. It was a beautiful day out that made this walk around the water very enjoyable! One thing that I noticed on the campus were these hand towel machines, which allowed you to drag down the reusable towel to use, in turn initiating the pulley system that took the used towel back in to be cleaned. This is very sustainable as it produces no waste, and instead cleans and reuses the material for many more hands to come!
After our free time, we participated in a climate fresk, which we were split up into groups in order to learn about the causes and effects involved in climate change. We had to take cards that had something related to climate change on it and place it in a sort of timeline based on how each affected the next. After five different decks, we created the chart below, which shows how human activities created all of these problems that ultimately lead to all of the effects, like rising temperatures and sea levels, we are experiencing today. I thought this was really eye-opening, as I obviously knew that humans were the base of the problem but it is just frustrating that we created all of these things and yet we as a society are not willing to make changes to preserve this planet. After creating the timeline, we drew arrows to connect various parts of it and also decorated it. The last part of the activity was talking about solutions and ways we can both reduce our footprint while increasing our handprint. While talking about this, we realized it is not so black and white, as doing one thing that solves one problem can create/contribute to other problems. Regardless, this workshop was so interesting to learn from and made me think about climate change in a different way that before!
