The creation of the Cyano-Light was a project carried out by 6th year alumni from Newlands High School. Its purpose is to carry out the early detection of the proliferation of cyanobacteria in order to prevent their contact with the neighboring population and avoid their impacts on health.
Here, we present the state of the matter, which includes the explanation of the issue and the knowledge available to date in relation to the topic.
Document presenting the State of Art
We selected this topic after looking through environmental issues mainly involving water bodies, which led to the most detailed investigation of the case of the Chascomús lagoon. This lagoon has varying levels of presence of cyanobacteria that are harmful to human health. Likewise, various sports and tourist activities are carried out in the lagoon with almost no awareness of the abrasive effects of cyanobacteria.
With this in mind, we created a version of the already existing “Ciano-Semaforo” which could be tangible rather than digital. The idea is based on a buoy and a floating traffic light which, depending on the level of cyanobacteria detected by the buoy, turns on a light according to the danger (red, yellow and green). The traffic light will thus alert people from the shore, raising awareness about the dangers of this bacteria.
“Aerobalde” is a project done by the 6th year studients at the Secondary School that deals with the problem of the lack of drinking water in Villa Atamisqui, Santiago del Estero, which is a town that does not have water because it is a town that has been in a great drought for years. This project’s initiative is to help the people obtain drinking water and thus be able to help them satisfy their basic needs since they do not have enough resources. Below I share with you the State of the Art document that has been investigated and what is known about this problem today.
MicroClean is a project carried out by 6th-year students from the Secondary School. It addresses the issue of microplastics in bodies of water.
As many people know, microplastics contaminate both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. This is a global problem. These particles can pollute water undetected, sometimes for months. Therefore, detecting this type of material is key.
Below, we present the state of the art, which outlines the problem and the current knowledge on the subject.
The decision to focus on microplastics stems from the fact that these contaminants, due to their tiny size, are particularly difficult to remove using conventional methods and often go unnoticed, progressively accumulating in the environment. They not only harm aquatic life but can also enter the food chain, posing potential long-term risks to human health.
Thus, we set out to create a device capable of effectively and sustainably addressing this issue.
MicroClean is a prototype specifically designed to capture and eliminate microplastics in bodies of water. This prototype is made from bioplastics—plastic materials derived from renewable sources such as plants, vegetable oils, starches, or microorganisms, instead of petroleum-based sources. They are biodegradable.
In this case, we envision its use in Lake Viedma. Its approach not only enables the efficient collection of plastic particles but also does so without harming aquatic organisms or disrupting the lake’s natural balance. The creation of MicroClean addresses the need to remove microplastics from bodies of water.
Since we have memory, we have been taught both at home and in school about the care of the most precious resource for humans: water. It can be as simple as ‘when we brush our teeth, we should turn off the tap’ or ‘let’s not take too long in the shower.’ From a young age, we have automated these actions into our daily habits.
Nowadays, we see it as a routine, requiring no effort to perform these actions. It goes beyond thinking about the bills for water consumption; it is ingrained in our subconscious to care about water usage. However, a significant portion of the population is not conscious of water conservation. We didn’t have to go far to find this issue; a great example is the Federal Capital, Buenos Aires. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each individual residing in the capital consumes 612 liters of drinking water per day, while the WHO suggests that an individual only needs 100 liters of water to meet their needs. Why does this happen? A report from the Ciudad Foundation explains that this occurs due to a low level of awareness, citizen participation, and adherence to coexistence norms. Not to mention the fact that the government fails in its role of controlling this matter. There are not many proposed solutions, but today there is the BA 147 application. In this app, citizens of Buenos Aires can report, make complaints, and submit requests about the city. This enables citizens, through the application, to report situations of illicit water consumption, allowing the government to take action
Solution:
As we know, not everywhere teaches these values regarding water conservation or adheres to the regulations governing the responsible use of this resource. We have conceived an idea for a solution. Create an app where each family or individual residing in the federal capital can connect, register their residence, and then be responsible for paying their water consumption bills. If they exceed the 100 liters of water that the World Health Organization estimates as necessary to meet individual needs, these individuals will have to pay an additional fee on top of the water bill. Separately, the app will have an awareness section informing users about all the consequences of daily water wastage and providing basic solutions to reduce it.
Conclusion:
We have conducted an analysis of the water issue in the Federal Capital, its consequences, and the measures being taken in this regard. In the process, we focused on the problem of water wastage due to a lack of household care and concluded that one of the most crucial points to address this issue is education. Since this situation could improve with the simple act of changing some habits, it is essential for society to be informed and able to care for water.
Sea Aid is a project carried out by 6th year Secondary School students which addresses the problem of waste in the oceans. As is widely known, marine pollution is becoming a bigger problem every day, with between 8 and 12 tons of plastic being thrown into the sea per year.
Next, I share the investigation about the project and what is known about it till this day.
Our idea:
The choice of the problem arose from a talk we had at school by two professional divers, who told us how, when diving, they have mesh bags which they use to collect the garbage that they find during the exploration.
As a result, we started to think about how we could optimize this collection time in order to collect more plastics in less time.
We proposed a more automated solution which could be carried out on a larger scale without requiring so many people. We concluded that the best way to do this was to directly prevent waste from entering the ocean.
For this, we created a device that will be in charge of collecting garbage found on the coast by using a claw. Moreover, it is programmed to move away from the sea if it is close to it with the help of a proximity sensor.
Sea Aid es un proyecto realizado por alumnos de 6to año de la Escuela Secundaria el cual trata la problemática de residuos en los océanos. Como es de público conocimiento, la contaminación marina está siendo cada día un problema más grande, arrojándose entre 8 y 12 toneladas de plástico al mar por año.
A continuación comparto el estado del arte en el cual figura el recorte del problema y lo que se sabe de ello al día de hoy.
Nuestra idea:
La elección del problema, surgió a raíz de una charla que tuvimos en el colegio a cargo de dos buzos profesionales, quienes nos comentaron cómo, al bucear, cuentan con bolsas de red las cuales utilizan para recolectar la basura que se van encontrando durante la exploración.
A raíz de eso, nos pusimos a pensar en la forma en la cual se podría optimizar ese tiempo de recolección para así lograr juntar más plásticos en menos tiempo.
Planteamos una solución más automatizada la cual se pudiera llevar a mayor escala sin necesidad de requerir de tantas personas. Concluimos en que la mejor manera de hacerlo era directamente evitando que los residuos ingresaran al océano.
Para esto, ideamos un dispositivo que se va a encargar, mediante una garra, de recolectar basura que se encuentre en la costa. El mismo está programado, mediante un sensor de proximidad, para alejarse del mar en caso de estar cerca de él.
GeoPlant is a business carried out by 6th year students of seccondary school. With the objective of facing the problematic of lack of green spaces in our surrroundings , we design the solution in a mobile application called GeoPlant. The main purpose of this innovative tool is to notice merchants, municipalities, gobernants and neighbours which type of bushes, plants or trees you are capable to plant in your garden, square, field, and many places by a questionnaire with different options easy to understand, which by finishing it, it will give you a result of which type of soil do you have, and what can you plant in it.
The increasing of green spaces can really be essential for the prosperity of the biodiversity. Nowadays, it´s very common the lack of this spacces, due to the large amount of edifications that are because of the big crew of people that live in those cities. Our group decided to emphazise in this subject, because we are interested in how the lack of this green spaces damage our health and reduce anthropic action, because through the process of photosynthesis, trees are able to absorb carbon dioxide CO2 from the atmosphere and expel oxygen (O2) as waste, which we need to live, simultaneously reducing the environmental impact.
Nowadays, not only do agrochemicals represent a problem which affects the health and well-being of people but also the environment globally. In Argentina, since 1996, more and more agrochemicals are being used, as well as GM crops with the aim of optimizing harvests and generating products with fewer problems during cultivation. The reason why most farmers are in favor of the use of agrochemicals is due to the effective prevention and control of pests, in addition to the fact that they provide an improvement in yields.
Owing to our concern about getting to know really what we are eating, we started think ing of a way to mitigate the impact caused by this problem. Despite the fact that chemicals in the agricultural field are present throughout the world and eradicating their use in large companies is almost impossible, we believe that change begins from individuality and local action.
Our idea:
In order to address the problem introduced, we decided to design an app called “Garden in community”, with the aim of promoting the development of community gardens in the district of Almirante Brown. After doing some research and touring our city, we discovered that very few people have notion on this subject. Therefore, our challenge was to find a way to encourage people to collaborate with the production of organic gardens, not only to raise awareness about the production and consumption of healthier food, but also to achieve better nutrition in society. and contact with nature.
Through this shared gardens it would be possible to reduce the environmental impact as there would be a decrease in intensive agriculture and transgenic foods, together with encourage current and future generations to lead a healthier life. Green spaces would be used and help would be provided to public kitchens. It is a non-profit app which can be downloaded by anyone who wishes to participate.
Air pollution is not only a current problem, but it is also global. Pollution is directly related to the burning of fossil fuels such as oil because this releases extremely harmful particles. This worsened in the eighteenth century after the industrial revolution as it increased the burning of the above. From the middle of the 20th century, the changes accelerated, due to the increase in production in factories.
This problem is not only focused on big cities, but affects the whole world in the same way, this being a global problem. Global temperatures are rising faster and faster, melting the poles, even rising sea levels. The ozone layer is being destroyed, having the passage of cosmic rays that are very harmful to all living beings, not just humans. In cities, the accumulation of many gases and particles, which manifest as smog, creates an environment that is highly harmful to health.
Problematic:
The problem that we decided to combat is air pollution generated by soot, which is caused by the combustion of vehicles. Exposure to high levels of air pollution can cause many adverse health outcomes. For example, soot enters the respiratory system and then the blood, causing cardiovascular accidents.
About 25% of all energy-related CO2 emissions come from transportation. These emissions produce approximately 400,000 premature deaths per year due to poor air quality (AQUAe Fundación, 2018).
Air pollution can be irreversible for life on the planet, therefore, work must be done to mitigate air pollution.
Polluting particles PM2.5 and PM10 (for its acronym in English), are those particles that are suspended in the air, such as dust, soot, smoke and aerosol. Large amounts of particles are typically emitted by vehicles, among others.
For this reason we decided to face this problem, analyzing mitigation measures and looking for possible solutions that help us combat this problem.
Our idea:
Our project is an intelligent parking lot whose objective is to mitigate the damage caused mainly by vehicles. It would be possible since the cars will travel a shorter distance and will not be turning around inside a parking lot looking for a place to park. When a person is about to enter the parking lot, before entering, they scan a QR code with their cell phone, which directs them to our website. Once inside, you will be shown the path to follow to park your vehicle in an available spot. In turn, the parking lot will have LED lights above each parking space that will indicate the availability or not of a space.
In this way, we reduce the largest air pollutant that is soot, generated by the anthropic action of man, since exposure to high levels of air pollution can cause many adverse health outcomes and generate a great environmental impact.
Other solutions:
Some possible solutions proposed by the experts include the use of public transport or bicycles (also promoted by the State) and thus reduce the number of cars that burn fossil fuels circulating on the street, since as Xavier Querol analyzes, most of the polluting particles come from here
María Victoria Toro Gómez explains how technology can help prevent the environmental impact from being greater, and the Argentine government is using different measures to achieve this. What is being done is the certification of emissions of new vehicles, that is, to restrict the carbon footprint that new vehicles may have, in addition to controlling the production of such so that it is not so polluting.
Microplastics are plastics whose size ranges from 3 to 5 nanometers. To keep in mind, 1 nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter. These are products of the erosion and degradation of plastic and can end up in the seas and even in the air we breathe. If we breathe it, it will end up in our lungs, and if it ends up in the sea it will most probably end up in a fish that will then be eaten by someone. In addition, some microplastic particles are so small that they can even pass through the pores of our skin.
Microplastics are a global problem that is increasing with the production of plastic.
Proposed solution
After researching, we concluded that the most direct and easiest way to reduce the amount of microplastics is to simply reduce the amount of plastics. Plastics are generated by man, so it falls on our hands to reduce their quantity.
The best way to reduce the amount of plastic is through responsible consumption and avoiding the use of plastic, however this is not always possible, so another option is to recycle. However, this can be a tricky process as people sometimes get confused as to which bin the items they want to throw belong to. This is why we ideated a smart bin, which we integrated with a strong artificial intelligence which was trained to distinguish between different types of waste. Through this, the sensor can predict what type of waste was thrown away.
Also, once the plastics are taken to the recycling center, not all the plastic is recycled. That is why we put those leftover plastics in a in a container, near the recycling plants, with silkworms and zophobas morio. This are worms that can break down polyethylene and polystyrene, which are two of the most widely used plastics in the industry.
It should be clarified that after finishing the project, we found out that it already existed. However, ours is different from the other one in that it only allows one residue at a time while ours allows many. The other smart bin is called bin-e.
Conclusion
We really think that it is necessary to reduce the amount of plastics in the world to make sure that microplastics never become a real problem. The reduction of plastics guarantees our future and will be a great step to continue advancing in the future.
