When a number of classmates stayed away from school complaining of diarrhoea, vomiting and fever, Dakshina S. went looking for reasons and came up with a novel ‘combined herbal water container’ for water purification. This project is among those to be presented at the ongoing National Children’s Science Congress.
A class 6 student of Government HSS, Puthur, Kollam, Dakshina found that the children falling ill were from one particular ward. With her science teacher, she set out to explore and found that well water used by the children had a heightened E.coli presence owing to waste water from cow sheds and inadequate distance between toilets and wells.
E.coli presence was detected in water in nine of the 30 houses selected at random. After chlorination, seven samples were E.coli-free, but two were not. Their pH levels too did not meet the mark. So, this water was passed through a filtration process in which a layer of sponge was followed by other layers of vetiver roots, basil (thulasi) and neem leaves, gooseberry, coriander etc. The water collected after filtration was found pure. Lab tests also backed their findings, says Dakshina.
