Civil Engineering
The design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure like bridges, roads, tunnels and pipelines. Civil engineers use math and physics to plan cities and build highways. It’s the oldest branch of engineering and vital to meeting the needs of cities and people.
What would you do?
- Design plans for city layouts and roads
- Analyze environmental properties like soil and rock strength
- Construct highways and power lines
- Maintain deteriorating infrastructure
- Test models against natural disasters
To fight climate change, civil engineers…
Design efficient cities
- Create compact road and city layouts to cut transportation emissions
- Build parks and gardens to reduce heat and improve air quality
- Add public transportation like subways and trains
Make construction sustainable
- Use renewable resources like net-zero concrete
- Build infrastructure with as little energy and material as possible
- Renew old parts of roads and bridges instead of replacing whole systems
Create sustainable buildings
- Optimize insulation and natural light to save energy
- Build in parts that are easy to take apart and reuse
Save water
- Design roads that capture and reuse rainwater
- Build levees to protect against sea-level rise
Relationship to climate change
Better city planning and construction techniques will reduce pollution and emissions.
Use civil engineering for these Project Drawdown solutions:
- Appliance & Equipment Efficiency
- Aviation Efficiency
- Building Envelopes
- Building Systems
- Cool Roofs
- Distributed Solar PV
- District Cooling
- District Heating
- Electric Bicycles
- Electric Cars
- Electric Trains
- Electric Trucks & Buses
- More solutions →
Get started
A great fit if you’re interested in architecture, construction and design, especially for bridges, buildings or towers.
Recommended classes
High school: Physics (H), AP Physics 1/2, AP Physics C, AP Seminar, AP Research, Intro to Engineering, Trigonometry, AP Precalc, AP Calculus, Statistics
College: Civil Engineering & Architecture, Principles of Engineering, Thermodynamics of Materials, Composite Materials
Project ideas
- Help your local government design cities sustainably
- Test how recycled materials can replace conventional ones
- Build model structures and iterate to make them stronger
- Simulate bridges and dams with MATLAB or CAD
- Interview experts to learn more
More resources
- Civil Engineers (BLS)
- Why 3D printing could make housing cheaper and more sustainable
- What is a sustainable city? 10 characteristics of green urban planning
- The crucial role of civil engineering in sustainable development
Written by Agastya Parikh, Palo Alto High School (2027)
