This Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day, which marks an ideal time to discuss the ecological challenges of our modern lifestyles and pave the way to a greener future.
To mark the occasion, I visited my daughter’s elementary school to talk to her Grade 1 and 2 class about the problems that gasoline-powered cars are creating by running on dirty fossil fuels and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. I also shared that electric cars are starting to solve some of those problems by running on electricity without creating emissions, but that they still pose challenges of their own – for example, that not all power sources are clean themselves, and the frequent need to stop and wait for a charge means that some people aren’t patient enough for the way today’s EVs work.
At the end of the presentation, I offered them a challenge: design a car or a method that could solve some of these problems and contribute to a cleaner planet. They fully embraced it and came up with all kinds of brilliant ideas.
Here are some green driving solutions that the future engineers and scientists from Ms. L’s class are thinking about today.
Anita’s solution is to replace external power sources with human power. “I thought about the energy that we have in our own bodies,” she says. Her design has a pulley system with two handles that the driver pulls on together to move forward or one at a time to steer. For an even more futuristic touch, her car has a helicopter rotor as well.
Sophia’s idea centres around using people power as well. She decided to mount a bicycle on top of her car that a person could ride to put it into motion. Her Eco-Mobile is plant-powered, though she says it uses a little bit of gas on short drives. Sophia added a feature that addresses another major pollution problem: her windows are made from recycled plastic products to keep them out of the oceans.
George’s car has sails on top of it to capture wind energy. It’s also a flying car and a submarine, and it shoots lasers – it’s quite the multi-tasker.
Momoka wants a car that has “a controller, fun games, and a TV in the back.” She’s going to run all of this with a car that uses clean power by taking its electricity exclusively from river current hydroelectricity, one of Canada’s cleanest and most plentiful sources of energy.
Rather than design a car, M's idea addresses the pollution created by the cars that are already on the road. She sketched out a plan for a factory that converts gas-powered cars so that they can be powered by both the sun and the moon, giving them a constant energy source around the clock.
Ivy’s is a throwback approach. She points out that there was far less pollution before we started driving cars and thought that reverting to horse-drawn carriages would be a practical solution. (This led to an animated discussion about how the horse’s “output” could be used to grow more plants, which will surprise absolutely no one who has ever cared for an eight-year-old.)
Besides being very colourful, Daniel’s car flies using wind power to pick up and propel the roof-mounted rotors.
Athena’s electric car has grass growing on the hood to help it contribute more clean air back into the atmosphere. (It also has a TV inside, which is a remarkably popular feature among this group.)
When kids are given a voice, they can change the world. And if these contributions are any indication, our planet is being handed down into very capable hands.
