The earth had kept its beautiful and clean life for billions of years. But after the Industrial Revolution, humans have spoiled the Earth in just decades, and the Earth has warned humans in various ways. For this reason, movements to protect the Earth have boomed. As Postechians will be future leaders, they have many interests in the environment. Students demonstrate their interests and solutions as they apply to contests in POSTECH with subjects about creating a better environment.
For example, POSTECH Culture Content Contest in Science and Technology, hosted by The Postech Times, collected ideas in UCC, SF and Photo Story with free theme. The first prize was given to Yusung Kim (ME 11) who applied for UCC. He mentioned about danger of global warming and how to protect the earth. He showed the difference of when people leave the situation and when people try to protect the earth. Students felt the big difference and realized why they have to protect the earth. Also he introduced green jobs, which make people and the earth live together, such as an eco-friendly urban designer. There are a few lectures that address environment in POSTECH’s curriculum. He said “I wanted to alert Postechians who are tired in busy daily life to the present situation.”
Also POSTECH holds the Creative Contents Contest (CCC) to promote students’ creativity. Students present ideas to make POSTECH better. Thirty-three teams applied to the contest, twice as many as last year. In spite of many various and good ideas, a team who presented on recycling won the top prize. The team consisted of Lee Jongwon (MSE 10), Song Su-Beom (MSE 10) and Ahn Min Kyeong (IME 11).
They presented a survey of people living in Seongnam city that reveals 43.1 percent of domestic garbage can be recycled. Much reusable garbage is thrown away and to get new product requires more fuel. During the process, the Earth is destroyed so recycling has a large impact on the Earth. POSTECH makes about seven hundred tons of garbage each year and spends eight hundred million won on garbage disposal and related services. Even though POSTECH has many recycling bins, the types of bins are limited and signs indicating what goes in each bin are worn out. To know where to place recyclable products, Postechians have to go close and see the recycling bin carefully. The team paid attention to low recycling, and they concluded that the worn out words and low visual effects cause the low recycling rate. They redesigned the recycling bins. They made boxes for each type of recyclable material. For example a box on the bottles bin has kinds of reusable bottles and an LED lamp in the box lights the bottles. They improve visual effect so people know where they have to place recyclables.
In addition, Postechians try to have direct impact on the earth. POSTECH spent about a hundred million won to dispose of food garbage last year. In Korea most food garbage is buried. This leads to soil erosion. And during delivery of the garbage, trucks emit greenhouse gases. Students belonging to six groups realized this and promised to never leave behind food. They took only as much as they could eat and tried to eat everything for months.
Like this, Postechians are very interested in protecting the earth and they try to do something for the earth with others or alone. It is very trivial in terms of the earth but these small works will make a fence to protect the earth.