By Sarah Hendrix | Staff Writer

Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) is a national club offered at KCC that is committed to designing and creating projects that make a positive difference in the world. ESW has worked on projects to promote water conservation at KCC through monitoring water consumption in the culinary program and creating a rain garden to divert excess run-off. It creates projects to help promote sustainability for the planet while providing an atmosphere for students to gain practical skills and meet new people.

One of the projects ESW has worked on was lowering the amount of water consumed in KCC’s greenhouse. (Photo courtesy of Christopher Blake)

Every semester ESW has different projects that students can choose to join that they are passionate about. Projects the club worked on last semester were a water monitoring project for the 220 Grille, greenhouse modernization and sustainable surf wax.

The water monitoring project for 220 Grille was designed to lower the amount of water consumed at KCC. As of February 2017, KCC was consuming 48.7 million gallons of water per year in comparison to LCC’s consumption, which was 19.9 million gallons per year. ESW decided to create a device that could monitor the amount of water used in a tap on campus.

The water monitoring device was designed and built last semester by a group in ESW that decided to take on the project. Now in this coming semester, the students have plans to attach the device to a tap on campus to raise awareness about the amount of water being consumed. They believe by raising awareness first, then people can choose to make a conscious effort to use less water in the future.

Another project that was created by ESW at KCC is the rain garden. In 2015, ESW designed a pipe to divert run-off water into a garden on campus. Now that garden is filled with plants and ESW has plans to design another rain garden at KCC this semester.

Christopher Blake is the president of the ESW at KCC. (Photo by Sarah Hendrix)

Christopher Blake is the president of ESW and has plans to major in Electrical Engineering. He became the president back in the fall of 2017 and has a passion to make a positive difference in the community.

“Really monitoring water consumption, minimizing the amount of water that we’re using, that’s kind of one of the things that we can do to make this Earth that we live on a more sustainable place,” Blake said.

Blake talks about the benefits of joining a club at KCC, specifically for students interested in joining ESW. Students that come in without any skills have a chance to participate in projects that provide the opportunity to gain practical skills and meet new people. One student in the club had the opportunity to learn how to use a 3-D printer, which is now something he can put on his resume when applying for future jobs.

“It’s very important to remember, the people we go to school with today are going to be our co-workers two or three years from now,” Blake said. “So it’s good to be out there, to network, to learn, to share, to grow. I think if we want to grow at all you need to be out there and talk to people.”

When Blake was asked why students should consider joining ESW, he wanted them to know the impact that one person can have in the overall picture. If every person chose to make a positive difference, then the world as a whole would look much brighter.

“Many people should consider this particular club, this particular organization because the purpose is to just make a positive difference where you are,” Blake said. “Imagine if everybody just makes a positive difference where they are. In the overall picture, we’ll see a positive picture. Like we’re all little pixels in the computer screen and if we all put out the right image, kind of the right light, you’ll see a beautiful picture.”

ESW’s next meeting will be on Jan. 22 in Kokiʻo 207 at 4 p.m. An event will also be held on Pi Day on March 14 (3/14) that will be hosted by ESW, Math Club, Physics Club, Ecology Club and Botany Club and is open to students who want to get more involved in the clubs offered at KCC.

ESW can be contacted through email to Christopher Blake at cjblake@hawaii.edu or eswkcc@gmail.com.