INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN CONTEST AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE

will be the 10 th Anniversary celebration of the International Environmental Design Contest sponsored by WERC. The Design Contest uniquely combines education and research in a competition that produces results which can be, and are, applied throughout government and private facilities across the United States. The emphasis for the Design Contest is two-fold: Research: Government agencies and private industry provide "real-world" problems to be addressed as a "task" for the Contest each year. The tasks are designed specifically for creativity. The sponsoring sites receive 5 to 10 innovative and bench-tested solutions. Education: Many universities use the Contest as a capstone design class and give students 2-4 credit hours for participation. The competition utilizes all aspects that have been learned over the student's educational courses. The competition requires teamwork, inter-disciplinary coordination, research, writing skills, and long hours. The team members remark that the Contest is the single, most educational tool that they experience in college. The participants in the Design Contest develop a full-scale design while testing a bench-scale working model of their proposed solutions. They consider alternative solutions to a given "environmental challenge" from all aspects including technical, legal, health, socioeconomic and community related issues. The judging criteria includes: process feasibility and practicality, cost analysis, community relations and outreach, adherence to various applicable regulations and permitting, safety considerations, and a discussion of potential waste streams. This paper will cover the tasks for the 2000 competition and will also cover the results from the 1999 competition.