By comparing the two articles, I think the first article “Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering” is more useful for an engineering professor. Engineering has been playing a great role ever since the civilization began. In the modern era, the world population is booming and at the same time people’s needs for a higher quality life are also increasing. Therefore, there are more challenges and opportunities that await our engineers, especially in the four popular aspects, namely sustainability, heath, vulnerability and joy of living (passage 1).
Personally, as an engineering undergraduate, I’m very proud to see that engineering has the responsibility to take care of the world and to make our earth a better place. In my opinion, among all the four main challenges, sustainability is the most urgent problem, for the nature resources are not infinite. In other words, the more we consumed, the less we left. People now consider using the solar energy which is renewable and seems to be endless. But converting the normal sunshine into such an economical and useful form of power still waits for the engineers’ solutions.
Meanwhile, since the environment is so fragile and nature needs to take a relatively long time for it to recycle, it’s very easy to be polluted by human activities. The misuse of the environmental resources indeed accelerates the degeneration of nature. Let’s take the ozone layer depletion as an example. The ozone layer was mainly damaged by the emission of CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, which were often used as a cooling agent. People used to think that CFCs were chemically safe and stable, so they had put CFCs into the industry in a large scale. People did not realize its harms or destruction until the bad side effects were detected. From then on, the rescue of the environment began. It needs the technological supports from engineers and scientists, and a cleaner and more effective substitute should be created.
Engineering is not only about to comprehend nature, but to change the world a more convenient home for all human beings as well. They have to take the duty to meet social demands, and sustain our precious natural resources for generations.
Reference:
Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering, from: http://www.engineeringchallenge.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx
