Environmental Challenges in China: Rural Villages to Big Cities

China's rapid economic growth and industrialization has resulted in an increase in environmental pollution. The country is struggling with water pollution, soil erosion, desertification, and air pollution.

Through three lessons and their associated activities, students learn about some of the environmental challenges facing rural and urban China in the areas of energy use, air pollution, climate-driven home and roof design, and optimization.

In the introductory lesson, students learn about the sources of indoor and outdoor pollution in China, its composition of carbon dioxide and particulate matters, and its health effects. Two helpful approaches involve conserving energy (including energy efficiency) and using "clean" energy. In the associated activity, students discover how they can save energy.

In the second lesson, students learn about different climates in China and how this is reflected in smart house design, as they perform an associated design-build-test activity.

In the third lesson and its associated activity, students learn about renewable energy, solid fuels and the concept of optimization, and how engineers are working to solve the challenges of protecting the environment and public health. They reflect upon all they have learned in a creative wrap-up assessment activity. A short pre/post unit quiz is provided for overall unit assessment.

Civil and environmental engineers are concerned about the increasing presence of indoor and outdoor air pollution in China, and its impact on public and planet health. To meet growing energy demands and reduce environmental pollution, scientists and engineers from around the world are looking for ways to replace polluting and non-renewable energy sources with cleaner sources of energy, design homes that are appropriate for local climates and resources, and save energy and increase energy efficiencies in the heating, cooling and cooking needs for homes. Today's engineers must be truly global engineers, understanding how factors around the world combine to affect our daily lives and creating design solutions that are affordable, robust, sustainable and culturally appropriate.

This unit was developed to be conducted over approximately seven 50-minute class periods. See Table 1 for the suggested order to conduct the lessons and activities that comprise this unit.Table 1. Environmental Challenge in China unit schedule.