In Pumps, all is well on Mammoth Island when suddenly Brenda's baking shed has caught fire! Soon, the Mammoth Island Fire Brigade arrives and attempts to put the fire out, using water-filled mammoths. However, young Olive is sure that a machine might make it easier to get water to a fire. Looking at her bicycle pump, she wonders if it might be possible to create a device for pumping water. With the help of the inventor and other islanders, Olive builds a water pump that is soon put to the test and saves the summer barbecue!
Environmental Engineering: Designing a Sustainable Future
Environmental engineering's future seems boundless because it is based in the myriad ways in which nature solves its own engineering challenges. People have yet to design a system that pumps water 200 feet straight up toward the sky in a system that is silent, requires no mechanical pumps, and never malfunctions, yet giant sequoia trees do this every day. Environmental engineering has a distance to go to mimic nature's activities, but fortunately, nature provides endless examples of processes like the sequoias' that maximize energy conservation.
