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Friday, July 20, 2018

2016 Google Science Fair Grand Prize given for a 'basement science' project!

Use this as inspiration, and this story reflects the whole purpose of this web site:

Teenager Kiara Nirghin of South Africa won the 2016 Google Science Fair top prize for her work in trying to solve a local problem. South Africa was in the midst of a severe drought, and a majority of its people were beginning to feel pressure with food insecurity since crops were dying. Kiara was determined to help solve this problem by inventing a homemade chemical using orange and avocado peels that can hold 300 times its weight in water. By planting this mixture next to growing plants, the plants did significantly better and could survive much longer in the drought conditions.

This is an amazing example of the type of science and discovery one can do without funding, professional labs, and in one's basement!!

It takes identifying something of interest, breaking it down into fundamental pieces - think about what quantities and parameters might affect whatever it is you are interested in - and then create experiments to test how any of those parameters affects the system. Often one can find a local problem that requires a unique and new solution, and teens are fully capable of figuring such problems out!!

Just try it if you are curious about something!! You're likely to amaze yourself!

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