Six students from Willow International School in Mozambique were declared the Best in Sub-Saharan Africa for their investigation into finding an effective and reusable method to eliminating Methylene Blue from water.
Describing their experience, team members Carla Zuleca Chissano, Christian Kelven Maússe Zicai, Lucas Machava, Malika Allure De Sousa E Nogueira, Shantel Massula Da Silva and Thumisse Ribeiro Manhiça Penicela said: “We are extremely happy to know that we won the competition in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was an amazing and challenging experience. Over the past nine months, our team has worked very hard to achieve our objective to create and expand a relevant environmental project that could impact the lives of millions. We wanted to spread awareness of water pollutants and develop a realistic solution, which could be recreated at a large scale in various countries outside of Africa as well. This opportunity from Cambridge International has grown our environmental science experience and helped us to create meaningful impact in our community and potentially in many others.”
The judges said: “This is a well-focussed chemistry-oriented project directed at a practical problem of eliminating methylene blue from water samples. The justification and rationale for the project is clear, and the procedures are clearly laid out. Results are logically described and illustrated. There is a systematic coverage of different factors in the extraction. This is a highly relevant study to the local context which has applications to solve a real problem.”