Engineers without Borders
This story, "Engineering a Better World" is a great example of how engineering students can apply their skills to public engagement projects. An international project is helping Thai officials to transform a village in Thailand into an educational hub serving families from 10 rural communities. The overall goal is to develop a community-based boarding school that educates the children within their cultural environment. This village's proximity to others will allow students to visit on weekends and maintain close ties to their families. The University of Minnesota chapter of Engineers without Borders' part of the project is to develop a water sanitation system.
Closer to home, a project with the Indian Health Service (IHS) in Bemidji, Minnesota is improving the drinking water supply of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa Indians. According to the story,
Residents of the Grand Portage Reservation, located at the northeastern tip of Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, get their drinking water from Lake Superior. Because the reservation is located near several major point sources of pollution along the lake, individual homes are equipped with UV filtration units to ensure that people have potable water. Unfortunately, something is causing the units to malfunction, and the IHS has asked the student engineers to research the problem and come up with a diagnostics protocol. In addition, they will investigate the possibility of using an alternative filtration system.
Inventing Tomorrow, the magazine of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology, has this and several other stories about how science, engineering, and mathematics are having positive impacts on public issues.
Information about Engineers without Borders - USA can be found at their web site. In particular, this page gives more examples of interesting senior projects.