Mā te rauhiringa tātou e ora: Powerful Solutions

Connection to Research

Chemical and Process Engineers design methods for turning raw materials into useful products. This unit focuses on the ways engineers harness energy from the environment to generate heat and electricity to power our communities.

At the University of Canterbury, the centrepiece of our logo is a sheep being weighed! That sheep is an important reminder that our university exists to generate and share knowledge with students and our community so that everyone can take part in designing solutions that increase our quality of life and support the environment.

In this module, students get to play the role of STEM professionals solving power generation problems facing small, off-the-grid communities like marae across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Research Background

Many small communities across the globe are interested in providing their own power without dependence on a centralised electricity grid. For Māori communities across Aotearoa New Zealand, this is an absolute necessity. The legacy of colonisation means marae—sacred Māori gathering places and the living communities associated with them—must be energy independent. Māori communities have attained self-sufficiency through mixes of small-scale hydro, geothermal, solar, and wind power, reducing their dependence on fossil fuels. Many iwi (Māori tribes) are additionally leaders in the industrial geothermal energy sector, and advocate strongly for the expansion of other renewable energy sources.

Engineering Background

Our world is full of devices that need energy to run! We humans need chemical energy from food, a soaring bird soaring needs momentum and thermal energy from the wind and sun, and a cell phone plugged into the wall needs electrical energy to charge.

To supply all this energy, we need to harvest power from our planet. And to ensure we’ll always have enough energy, we need to understand the best ways to extract energy, without depleting or exploiting the sources. Research in chemical and process engineering seeks to better understand how we can harvest energy and use it to transform raw materials into the products society needs—from plastic to electricity to protein.

In this lesson, students will step into the mindset of engineers through building hands-on models for energy generators, estimating output of these devices at a larger scale, and using our Light Up the Marae interactive web app to explore how to create a balanced energy mix to power their community. The entire unit is focused through an indigenous Māori lens to provide a unique perspective to contextualize and deepen learning by highlighting indigenous efforts to achieve energy independence in a sustainable way. This allows many opportunities to explore how students’ local communities source their power.

Further Reading:

Popular Press Articles

• “Aotea Energy aims to revolutionise market with peer to peer sharing grid”
• “Iwi leaders key to helping Pacific countries deal with climate change”
• “Can renewable energy fix high power prices in Tairāwhiti?”

Scientific Articles

• “Populist resistance and alternative transitions: Indigenous ownership of energy infrastructure in Aotearoa New Zealand”
• “Explaining inclusivity in energy transitions: Local and community energy in Aotearoa New Zealand”
• "Māori and mining: Indigenous perspectives on reconceptualising and contextualising the social licence to operate"