October 16, 2008
New course leads to student contest for environmental solutions
A new “Environmental Innovation Practicum” course, offered this quarter, will be a springboard for a universitywide competition that will encourage students to develop practical solutions to environmental problems.
The two-credit course, which is the first activity sponsored by the new College of the Environment, will acquaint students with key concepts through case studies presented by speakers representing the public and private sectors. The theme for this year’s course is water.
“Water, in my view, is the system most affected by climate change,” says Emer Dooley, lecturer in entrepreneurship, who is teaching the course. “But finding solutions to problems involving water is still difficult to sell to investors.”
In each class meeting, a guest lecturer presents a specific problem or issue. Speakers represent the fields of natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, business, policy and law. The students — 53 of them, drawn from business, environment and engineering, and including both undergraduates and graduate students — are required to do a final paper in which they outline an environmental problem and describe potential solutions.
The final paper is a prelude to participating in the University of Washington Environmental Innovation Challenge (http://eic.washington.edu/), in which student teams will develop creative and cost-effective solutions to water-based environmental problems. Students need not be in the class to participate in the competition. The contest’s first deadline is in February, 2009. Top prize in the competition is $10,000, with one $5,000 second prize and three $2,500 honorable mention prizes.
Students in the class will have the opportunity of connecting with potential mentors from among the speakers and their organizations. “There are so many people looking at all aspects of the problem,” Dooley says. “The people in the community have been phenomenally helpful in creating this class, and in being willing to share their expertise with students. They are very eager to get more smart people involved in working on these issues. I can’t wait to see what the students come up with. They are an amazing group.”
The Environmental Innovation Challenge is not just a pencil-and-paper exercise. It emphasizes producing a working model or proof-of-concept of the idea/innovation and an executive summary that details the market opportunity. Projects will be judged by the feasibility of the practical application and the market potential, while addressing problems of environmental significance and enhancing environmental sustainability.
“Solutions don’t become real unless someone is willing to pay for them,” says Connie Bourassa-Shaw, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Foster School of Business, which is one of co-founders of the competition. “We know that many students want to make a difference, and they want to get started on solving environmental problems as soon as possible. We were hoping for 35 students in this class. We have more than 50 — and had to find a larger classroom. That’s a great problem to have.”
Bourassa-Shaw and Ellen Lettvin, assistant director of the Applied Physics Laboratory, which is the other co-founder, have also introduced a Call for Problems for the challenge, casting a broad net among government, nonprofit organizations and industry to present unsolved water problems to the class.
The practicum is cross-listed in business, engineering and the Program on the Environment; it will fulfill an undergraduate requirement for a senior design project in engineering and in other majors.
Bourassa-Shaw and Lettvin have already developed themes for the challenge in coming years — 2009-10 will be green building and 2010-11 will be energy. They also have plans of broadening the competition to students from throughout the region.
Campus partners for the challenge include the the College of Engineering, the College of the Environment, the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Program on the Environment, the School of Law and the College of Arts and Sciences.
