Volunteering for Go ENG Girl

Go ENG Girl is an event that is near and dear to my heart. In high school I favored math and science classes  but even liked music and art. I knew I wanted to go into either science or engineering but I really didn't know the difference between them. I finally chose Biotechnology; a program that combined the two. It was perfect! I would take biochemistry classes in the science department and chemical engineering classes from the engineering department. There was only one small bump in my plan. After the first year in the biotechnology program it was clear that I LOVED ENGINEERING! I was excited by my physics lab, I looked forward to programming and in general was just overjoyed when I had to go to my engineering classes! The following year, I applied for and was accepted into Environmental Engineering at Carleton and have never looked back.

I feel that the Go ENG Girl program is great because it allows girls the opportunity to explore engineering and hopefully spark an interest in the profession. I love engineering and it's something that I wished I had discovered at an earlier age. I've volunteered with Go ENG Girl for a number of years and if you are a student at Carleton I encourage you to do the same! The event is well organized and even though it's a on a Saturday and you have to get your butt out of bed, you'll have so much fun doing the activities with the girls that it's well worth it. It's an all around great volunteer experience.

Go ENG Girl is a half day event for Grade 7-10 girls across Ontario to visit their local university to learn about the wonderful world of engineering: "A Caring Profession." WISE is currently looking for volunteers to help make the event a success. Volunteers are needed to help with registration, give lab tours and help run activities. All training and materials will be provided and lunch is provided. Go ENG Girl is scheduled for Saturday October 13, 2012 at Carleton University and other universities accross Ontario. For more information about Go ENG Girl please visit www.ospe.on.ca/goenggirl.

What happens after the Green Bin

If you're like me, you were very excited when the City of Ottawa introduced the Green Bin Program a couple of years back. I study Environmental Engineering here at Carleton and am a self-proclaimed nut about composting! I think it's a great way to reduce the load going to landfills, which are expensive to make and it is becoming more difficult to build new ones. Plus, the final product of composting, compost, can be beneficial to farmlands and gardens. It's a win-win!

Recently, I was a part of a group who was invited to visit the facilities where material from the Green Bin is processed into compost. It is really great to get to see a process that you learn about outside of class in a real life!

When material from the Green Bin arrives, it is shredded to decrease size of some of the larger particles. Then material is piled and basically moved around in different piles under different conditions to help degrade the material.

For organics, such as kitchen waste, paper products, tissue and other items, to decompose it needs the right amount of water and air. When these elements are controlled, or engineered, the composting process is optimized to take less time. It really is a thing of beauty.

The final product is a light and fluffy material that has a nice earthy smell. Any plastic, metal, rocks or other more difficult to degrade items have all been removed in the process and the compost can be readily applied to farmland and gardens to provide necessary nutrients. We had a great visit and I hope that you've learnt a little bit about where your organics from the Green Bin go... and more importantly, I hope you like using your Green Bin as much as I do!