Odia girl, Lalita Prasida Sripada Srisai won the “Community Impact Award” yesterday at the prestigious Google Science Fair in California.
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The DPS Damanjodi student in Koraput has created a project which aims to clean waste water by running it through layers of corn cobs, powdered corn cobs, activated charcoal made from corn cobs and fine sand. To help develop their project, the victor is awarded with 10,000 US Dollars in funding and a year-long mentorship from Scientific American. In her age group (13-15), four others also won various awards. She developed a low cost water purifier which uses corn cobs in a very innovative manner. A very important agricultural waste, corn cob is a suitable adsorbent because of its high mechanical strength, rigidly and porosity.
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In her project report, Srisai said a byproduct of man’s action is the severe waste burden on the earth, while rapid development in lifestyle and technology has accelerated the release of contaminants into air, water and land, rendering it unsafe for organisms. The winners of the fifth annual Google Science Fair (2015) were announced live from Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. “Through the Google Science Fair, we want to support and foster the next generation of scientists and engineers” said a Google spokesperson”.
