WHAT WE DO
Our Mission
As champions for social and environmental justice, our mission is straightforward: to bridge resources with innovation and to engineer solutions that target the meaningful involvement of people for the common good.
Our research
We research and validate engineering problems in the lens of social and environmental justice. To learn more about our research please contact us at research@sjei.org.
Our projects
Education Outreach
SJEI’s Education Outreach program aims to spread awareness of ethical engineering practices, environmental justice, and social justice to middle school students in Arizona. This will be accomplished by planning, creating, and distributing a four-lesson curriculum that will engage students actively in exploring the importance of social and environmental justice in engineering practices. SJEI will complete community outreach efforts to seek cooperation and alignment with local schools and school boards, ensuring that the program complements and enhances existing state curricula and is readily accessible. The program will be implemented in classrooms beginning in Fall 2022.
The long-term objectives for the Education Outreach program are:
1. To promote the awareness and understanding of ethical engineering practices, social justice, and environmental justice
2. To promote positive social values at a critical developmental age for children
3. To bring widespread awareness to SJEI and its mission
While we are currently focusing our efforts in Arizona, our hope is to work towards a global reach. We believe the world will benefit from all children, across diverse ages, backgrounds, and nationalities, gaining knowledge into environmental and social justice issues in engineering. Ultimately, we hope our efforts encourage the world to become a more just and sustainable place, for the good of humanity and the environment alike.
Lastly, by Fall 2022, SJEI will implement its pilot program, making its curriculum widely accessible to middle schools in Arizona. For the 2022-2023 academic year, SJEI also aims to implement an in-person, volunteer-facilitated program in 5-10 low-income schools in Phoenix, Arizona, with 25 engineering-based activity kits provided to classrooms. By the end of the 2022-2023 academic year, we hope our curriculum will have reached 1,000+ students, both in-person and virtually
Low Cost Household Greywater Systems
As soon as you think about building a house in Arizona or anywhere for that matter, it becomes apparent that water is a major issue. Large parts of Phoenix for example are subsiding because humans are drawing water from the aquifers underground faster than they can be recharged. In fact this is the case in many parts of the world.
One of the easiest, cheapest, and common-sense solutions to this issue is to use less clean drinking water for uses that don't require it. Since it seems far less likely that the grass, palm trees, and gardens will be a thing of the past, we can do this by creating LESS black water. Greywater systems use the water that comes out of your bathroom sink and shower, and any other used water in your household that does not have fecal or food matter.
Our goal for this year will be to complete a low cost household greywater system, starting out local (Arizona) and expanding after proof of concept and design has been completed. By doing so we can design and install graywater systems on homes throughout Phoenix and the world at a low cost, eliminating upwards of 50% of what would otherwise be blackwater and reusing the water outdoors instead of using even more clean water outside. We could drastically reduce water consumption in the Phoenix area, whilst saving people money on their water bills. Further, we could teach the builders in the area to build these systems, and maybe provide a monetary incentive for a period, to keep the project going. The water table could also possibly be recharged by our efforts.
Our Advocacy
We advocate for stakeholders when engineering projects lead to a negative or zero sum outcome. Please contact us for more information at advocacy@sjei.org.
Salt River Project (SRP) Coolidge Generating Station Expansion - Stop SRP Coolidge