隨著現(xiàn)代社會的發(fā)展，就業(yè)市場對工程學(xué)人才的需求持續(xù)走高，北美各頂尖高校的工程學(xué)院和各工程學(xué)專業(yè)熱度也居高不下。申請季競爭的白熱化使得學(xué)校對申請人的衡量越來越全面和細(xì)致。在過硬的成績和科研項目之外，招生官也希望看到學(xué)生對學(xué)科既往的長期興趣與未來的學(xué)術(shù)潛力。而在北美高等教育的系統(tǒng)中，學(xué)科內(nèi)寫作能力是一名學(xué)生的核心競爭力之一，也是學(xué)生綜合素質(zhì)的重要體現(xiàn)。在這樣的背景下，申請人能否令人信服地展示自己對學(xué)科的積累、對與學(xué)科相關(guān)的社會問題的關(guān)切，以及在特定學(xué)科領(lǐng)域表達(dá)自己觀點(diǎn)的能力就成為了決定申請成敗的關(guān)鍵因素。本季推送，我們就向大家介紹一個面向全年齡段學(xué)生（小學(xué)至高中）的工程學(xué)學(xué)科寫作競賽。

Engineer girl Writing Contest

背景

Engineer girl Writing Contest 由Engineer girl網(wǎng)站舉辦。該網(wǎng)站由美國國家工程學(xué)會（National Academy of Engineering）管理，旨在增加公眾對工程學(xué)領(lǐng)域內(nèi)女性的關(guān)注，關(guān)注學(xué)科發(fā)展中的平等與多樣性問題。

賽事詳情

參賽資格：賽事分為小學(xué)組（3-5年級）、初中組（6-8年級）和高中組（9-12）三個組別。組別劃分以美國公立教育系統(tǒng)的學(xué)制為標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。男女學(xué)生均可參賽。在美國以外的國家或地區(qū)接受教育的參賽者應(yīng)依照這一標(biāo)準(zhǔn)選擇相應(yīng)組別參賽。

賽事日期：賽事組委會于每年的九月公布題目。截稿日期為次年2月1日。獲獎?wù)邥?月1 通過郵件收到通知。

參賽方式：線上提交稿件。

獎項設(shè)置：每個組別設(shè)一等獎、二等獎和三等獎。一等獎的獎金為$500，二等獎為$250，三等獎為$100。所有獲獎文章都將在Engineer girl網(wǎng)站上發(fā)表。

2022年題目概覽

題目：“就工程學(xué)能如何幫助實現(xiàn)可持續(xù)性發(fā)展的目標(biāo)寫一篇不超過650字的科普型文章。請從聯(lián)合國給出的17個可持性發(fā)展問題的核心領(lǐng)域中選擇一個作答”（Write an informative essay about how engineering can help humanity meet one of the Sustainable Development Goals.）

補(bǔ)充要求：

1.參賽的高中生需要隨稿附上參考文獻(xiàn)頁。參考文獻(xiàn)不計入文章字?jǐn)?shù)。初中和小學(xué)組的參賽者可選擇性提交參考文獻(xiàn)頁。

2.參賽作品必須為原創(chuàng)。文章正文中不應(yīng)出現(xiàn)參賽者的任何個人信息，也不應(yīng)出現(xiàn)對任何產(chǎn)品的商業(yè)推廣。

打分規(guī)則

對工程學(xué)學(xué)科的呈現(xiàn)（30%）	舉例分析（30%）	可持續(xù)性發(fā)展理念（30%）	文字呈現(xiàn)（10%）
這篇文章在多大程度上展示了工程學(xué)在社會中的積極和重要作用？ 它在多大程度上傳達(dá)了工程學(xué)從業(yè)者解決不同領(lǐng)域廣泛問題的能力？	這篇文章在多大程度上說明了如何使用工程設(shè)計來解決現(xiàn)實世界的問題？ 文章是否包括具體實例？	這篇文章在多大程度上展示了工程解決方案如何支持可持續(xù)發(fā)展理念？	這篇文章的寫作水平如何？是否足夠有說服力？

詳細(xì)打分表

官方對參賽者的建議

1.花時間了解工程學(xué)科和學(xué)科從業(yè)者的工作內(nèi)容。

2.在文章中加入具體、詳細(xì)的示例以提高說服力。

3.為實現(xiàn)可持續(xù)發(fā)展目標(biāo)而開發(fā)的任何技術(shù)都可能在其他領(lǐng)域產(chǎn)生溢出效應(yīng)——好的或壞的。請注意在文章中加入對你提出的思路可能在社會各領(lǐng)域產(chǎn)生的影響的討論。

4.與他人溝通特定項目的潛在風(fēng)險是工程師工作中的重要內(nèi)容。有時，對一個問題最可持續(xù)行的解決方案可能是終止某事而不是創(chuàng)造某事。你可以選擇寫一篇關(guān)于這樣的解決方案的文章。

5.在進(jìn)行研究時，請?zhí)貏e注意工程團(tuán)隊人員背景的多樣性對解決現(xiàn)實問題的積極意義以及工程學(xué)科對解決特定群體（特別是弱勢群體）關(guān)切的問題的積極作用。

2022年獲獎文章

小學(xué)組金獎文章

作者：Isha Gupta (5th grade at Daves Creek Elementary School)

According to the article “Global hunger fell for decades, but it's rising again,” “Food insecurity – both moderate and severe – has “consistently increased” since 2014, when the prevalence of under-nourishment was at 8.6%. It is now at 8.9%. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of hungry people grew by 10 million people.” As this statistic shows, we are not on the right track to fulfilling our sustainable development goal for zero world hunger in 2030. However, we can use engineering solutions to achieve this goal, including hydroponics. In basic terms, hydroponics is a method created by hydroponics engineers to grow plants or crops using nutrient-rich water without using soil. A hydroponic engineer is a specialist in growing plants using water instead of soil who builds and designs hydroponic systems. In the hydroponics system, the roots of the plants get both water and nutrients from the water. Importantly, hydroponics is an engineering solution that would help reduce world hunger and sustains our resources for the future.

Historically, the Aztecs utilized the idea of hydroponic systems to feed their growing populations by creating floating gardens. After being placed in the water, the roots of the plants and crops grew through the floor of the raft, so it was provided with water and nutrients. Since then, engineers have modernized the concept of hydroponics by creating equipment to allow people to have their own hydroponic system. There are various types of hydroponics systems. The most commonly used type is a drip system in which a timer controls a small tube that drips nutrient-rich water on top of the plants, which is recycled through a pump. To maintain these hydroponic systems, hydroponic engineers collaborate with people in many other fields including mechanical engineers, plumbers, and electrical engineers. When designing a hydroponic system, the engineers must weigh the pros and cons of how the nutrient level in the water will be maintained in each design.

Hydroponics can help millions of people who go hungry daily while also considering the diverse perspectives of both the producer and the consumer. First, crops can be grown any time of year using hydroponics, producing more food than traditional farming and providing the consumer with fresh food year-round, regardless of seasonality. Secondly, in places where land is not arable, hydroponics would still allow people to grow food. Finally, hydroponics increases the growth of plants by 30% to 50% compared to regular farming. Fortunately, for consumers, this means that the nutritional value of these crops is also better than traditional farming. For all these reasons, producers can grow more food. While hydroponics has positive effects for the producer and consumer, it also has negative effects. For example, it is easier for some diseases to spread in a hydroponics system because the plants are lined up or sharing the same container. Thus, it is important to remove infected plants as soon as they are discovered.

Hydroponics is also a sustainable solution for world hunger. First, crops grown through hydroponics require much less space than those grown in soil, mainly because the plant roots do not have to expand far to obtain nutrients and water. This helps conserve our resources because we use less land for plants and crops in hydroponic systems. Secondly, studies show that a hydroponic system uses up to 98% less water than traditional farming. This conserves water. Finally, hydroponics does not require pesticides or chemicals as regular farming does. This benefits the environment in the long term.

In conclusion, hydroponics is a sustainable, engineering solution that will hopefully help us reach the goal of zero world hunger in 2030. Hydroponic systems produce more food while requiring less space and resources by using more efficient methods. Ultimately, it will help us feed the growing population by allowing us to grow food where there is not enough agricultural land or resources.

文章亮點(diǎn)：清晰地定義了待解決的問題和解決問題的思路，關(guān)注了技術(shù)革新中存在的風(fēng)險

初中組金獎文章

作者：Chloe Weng (8th grade at Fort Settlement Middle School (Sugar Land, TX))

Made from a button and a piece of hide, traditional button whirligigs are children’s toys with a simple purpose: by pulling on the threaded string, the button spins in response. Despite its modest design, the whirligig spins at a rate of over 10,000 revolutions per minute (rpm). By expanding upon a similar concept as the whirligig, innovative bioengineers have tackled blood-borne diseases to help improve global wellness. Based on technologies that rotate rapidly, engineers have effectively enabled the diagnosis and prevention of pressing health conditions affordably in developing countries.

Among the pioneers of centrifuge-based diagnostic devices is Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum and her team of women engineers at Rice University. Their goal was to detect anemia, a major health problem in developing countries affecting about two billion people globally. Anemia can at first be mistaken as merely fatigue and headaches, but the condition can worsen into arrhythmia and other heart problems if it remains undetected. Inspired by a simple salad spinner, the all-female team creatively upcycled materials such as yogurt containers and plastic lids to develop a durable, hand-powered device that separates blood cells from plasma using a centrifuge design. When the team tested their engineering design, they found that it successfully detected anemia in thirty blood samples in only ten minutes. Although rooting out diseases was possible before, original centrifuges such as the StatSpin were slow, powered by electricity, and cost several thousand dollars, making them inaccessible to low-resource communities. The team’s achievement proved that centrifugal force and frugal science philosophy could be combined to diagnose diseases sustainably. Due to the fact that the female engineers developed the Sally Centrifuge in a low-resource setting, it shows promise and is a clever way to reuse materials that are already being manufactured without using electrical power.

Along the same vein of developments in bioengineering, Stanford professor Manu Prakash has established a human-powered centrifuge made out of paper, called the Paperfuge, to diagnose life-threatening blood-borne diseases such as malaria and HIV. At an astonishing rate of 125,000 rpm, Prakash’s Paperfuge effectively separates the heavier blood cells from the plasma in 90 seconds, leaving any potential diseases suspended in the middle. Compared to the Sally Centrifuge, designed by Kortum’s team five years earlier, the Paperfuge tests blood samples over twenty times faster. Additionally, the hand-powered Paperfuge is economical and compact; it costs only twenty cents and features a lightweight, two-gram design. As a result, its lightweight build makes it easy to transport.

Prakash took a prototype of the Paperfuge to Madagascar in 2016, where he worked with local doctors and health care workers. The health care workers examined fifty blood samples using a fluorescent stain under a microscope to confirm the diagnoses. Prakash also works with Pivot, a nonprofit organization that collaborates with the government to build community health infrastructure. Furthermore, by incorporating relatively abundant materials such as synthetic paper and twine, the Paperfuge can be duplicated in a short amount of time with limited harm to the environment since no electrical power is required. As the engineers continue to collaborate with health care workers, as well as nonprofit organizations and local governments in needy communities like Madagascar, they work towards distributing the Paperfuge for future generations in developing countries.

Inexpensive and portable devices like the Paperfuge are powerful engineered tools for clinicians to diagnose and eliminate diseases in rural communities. HIV, malaria, anemia, and other blood-borne conditions that the devices diagnose are treatable, but can become life-threatening if diagnosed too late. Starting with the promise of the Sally Centrifuge and leading to the ongoing distribution of the Paperfuge, the efforts of engineers to develop accessible technologies to detect these conditions early are crucial to develop modern global health technology and promote the wellbeing of all people around the world.

文章亮點(diǎn)：切入點(diǎn)獨(dú)特、實例翔實，關(guān)注到了研究團(tuán)隊背景的多樣性。

高中組金獎文章

作者：Megan Haubrich (11th grade at Fred C. Beyer High School (Modesto, CA))

Dusty plains. Parched, crumbling earth. A scorching sun. This is Kenya - an East African nation that climate change and exponential population growth have left clamoring for clean water. However, a recently developed technology could finally quench Kenya’s thirst, and it's thanks to real-world magic: engineering.

Water is liquid gold in Kenya. Rain arrives unpredictably in the country’s arid lands, causing dire shortages. In a population of 54 million inhabitants, three-quarters of which reside in rural communities, nearly half of Kenyans lack reliable access to water (The World Bank Group, n.d.). These shortages impact all aspects of their lives and hinder progress to multiple of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Food insecurity rises as farmers struggle to care for crops. The necessity for many to drink contaminated water jeopardizes health, resulting in deaths from preventable diseases. Women and children remain burdened by the time-intensive responsibility of water collection, which often forces them to forsake educational and economic opportunities (Unesco, 2021).

Budding innovator Beth Koigi is intimately familiar with Kenya’s crisis, having faced the stress-inducing consequences of water insecurity while studying at Chuka University (TEDxFasoKanu, 2019). There, tap water was murky and laden with sediment - practically undrinkable. As Kenya’s water supply continued to diminish, Koigi was inspired to contemplate the nuanced relationship between climate change and water access. While attending the Global Solutions Program at Singularity University in Silicon Valley, she met like-minded thinkers including Ukrainian-Canadian environmental scientist Anastasia Kaschenko, a UN Environment’s Young Champions of the Earth finalist in 2018, and British economist Clare Sewell (UN Environment Programme, 2018).

Together, these women questioned if they could provide water for underserved communities with a universally accessible and nearly inexhaustible resource - air. “There is six times more water in the atmosphere than in all of the rivers in the world combined,” according to Kaschenko in an interview with Trent Magazine. Additionally, global climate change is only causing the amount to increase. These observations became the basis for Majik Water: a sustainable atmospheric water generation system.

In designing the product, the all-female team addressed multiple constraints. Traditional air-to-water devices utilize the process of condensation, where gaseous water molecules are slowed by their interactions with a cooled surface, forming liquid. However, maintaining this process requires large amounts of energy and equally high costs (TRENT Magazine, 2019), rendering typical atmospheric water generators inaccessible - especially for rural Kenyans.

The team turned to non-toxic drying agents, like silica gel, as an affordable, low-energy alternative. Also called desiccants, these materials absorb water from their surroundings and release it in response to heat. The team also utilized solar power to protect local ecosystems and ensure the device could be used “off the grid.”

The finished product is inclusive, promising that “if you have air, you can have drinking water” (le Cam, 2020). It uses a solar-powered fan to intake moisture-laden air, from which water vapor is absorbed by desiccants. Expelled through heat, water molecules condense as they travel down a cooled condensing coil into activated charcoal filters, resulting in ready-to-drink water stored in antimicrobial tanks (TEDxFasoKanu, 2019).

While still in its infancy, Majik Water has already had a tremendous impact. In 2019, the company partnered with The Ark Children’s Home - an organization that houses and educates Kenyan orphans from water-scarce regions - providing a device that generates 50 liters of atmosphere-derived water daily. The company is also working with several global partners from Denmark to South Africa to increase water access on a larger scale. Their efforts promise to further numerous sustainable development goals through increasing crop yields, promoting health, and empowering women and children by freeing up valuable time.

As shortages continue to threaten health and wellbeing, many Kenyans wonder if they will ever have reliable water access. However, technological innovation provides hope. Through the magic of engineering, Kenyans may finally drink in abundance.

文章亮點(diǎn)：對可持續(xù)性發(fā)展理念進(jìn)行了深入全面的探討，關(guān)注到了工程學(xué)學(xué)科在結(jié)局具體問題時的多種思路以及不同思路的利弊。

美本STEM寫作競賽