Diapers to Dirt: Hydrogels Focus of National Youth Science Day

Thin strips of fabric floated through the air in Athens, Ga., on Oct. 8 as University of Georgia 4-H students ripped open disposable diapers to study their stuffing, joining students from across the nation to perform the first national science experiment for the 2008 National Youth Science Day.

Together, they turned diapers inside out to find hydrogels, the polymers that give diapers liquid-absorbing ability. A dot-sized hydrogel can hold up to 500 times its weight in water.

“We’re doing this experiment all over the nation. And if we can coordinate this, what other projects can be coordinated and replicated across the nation?” asked UGA sophomore and collegiate 4-H’er Laura Warren of Camilla, Ga.

The 4-H’ers collected the powdery gels and added water to see how much liquid a tablespoon of them could hold.

They then added dry hydrogels to soil, placing that mix and a control mix of plain soil in modified soda bottles. Then, they dumped dyed water into each sample. The liquid drained right through the control but stayed in the soil in the bottles containing the hydrogels.

Some students got messy, like senior Steven Dasher of Glennville. He now sees diapers in a new light.

“It was interesting to learn about the many different applications of such an everyday item,” he said.

Hydrogels are networks of polymer chains that do not dissolve in water. They can contain over 99 percent water and occur both naturally or can be manmade. Besides stuffing them in diapers, scientists are also studying them as a way to repair human tissue. Some hydrogels are environmentally sensitive and release their water when such things such as pH or temperature change. They’re also used in disposable contact lenses and as water gel explosives.

Across the U.S.

The national science experiment is part of a larger 4-H effort to attract a million new youth to 4-H science, engineering and technology programs by 2013.

“I thought the experiment was very applicable, especially this day in age with water being a hot topic,” said Austin Suggs, a UGA 4-H’er and sophomore from Tifton. “I’m interested in hydrogel use in production agriculture and in industrial use.”

He felt younger scientists could one day find bigger and better ways to use hydrogels.

After performing the experiment, students nationwide were asked to log on to the national 4-H Web site (www.4-H.org) to discuss their results.

As of Oct. 9, 299 people had reported to the site. The majority were middle school students, but the ages ranged from kindergarten to the dean of the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. And, 71 percent weren’t 4-H members.

Back in Georgia

Across the state, UGA Cooperative Extension agents performed the experiment with their students. One agent set it up on a square in downtown Covington. Others used 4-H club time to perform it with their kids.

Teachers also got in on the action. Students in Jackson County asked their teacher if they could take diapers home to show the experiment to their families.

Georgia state 4-H director Bo Ryles will be doing the experiment next week with boys at the Bill Ireland Youth Development Center in Milledgeville. He hopes the goopy hydrogels will pull the boys farther into science.

“We started 4-H there, and we’re a part of their science class every week,” Ryles said. “We’re reaching 80 seventh- and eighth-grade boys with this science program. We know it’s going to be a challenge, but their sense of curiosity is still there.”

By Stephanie Schupska
University of Georgia

Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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Fayette County's Whitewater High School Student Inventors Win $10,000 MIT Grant

GE Note: Congratulations to the Whitewater High School students who will be working on the prototype of their invention. All of Georgia is pulling for your success!

A group of high school students might have the solution to end the world’s shortage of clean drinking water. So impressed with their idea was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that it awarded them a $10,000 grant to develop a prototype.

Five students who make up the InvenTeam at Whitewater High are one of only 16 teams throughout the US and Canada to receive a Lemelson-MIT grant for the 2008-2009 school year. The students are Kavita Singh, Chris Sandwich, Jacob Cotton, Andrew Barth and Hendri deBeer.

InvenTeams are composed of high school students, teachers and mentors who collaboratively identify a problem that they want to solve, research the problem and then develop a prototype invention as an in-class or extracurricular project.

The Whitewater team decided to create a combination dehydrator and condenser that will preserve food while purifying the water that results from the dehydration process.

This team is the first in Fayette to win a grant. InvenTeam is expected to release a final list of grant winners later this month, but so far only one other Georgia team has won a grant since the program began in 2003.

Whitewater submitted an initial application for the grant last spring and received an Excite Award, an invitation to complete a final, more detailed application of the idea. The selection of the finalist teams is based on the inventiveness and feasibility of the proposed idea. A panel of MIT professors, staff and alumni, inventors, researchers, entrepreneurs and high school educators assess the applications.

The team will use the grant money to purchase materials and supplies needed to develop a prototype of their invention. They will have all school year to complete the prototype. The team will display and discuss their invention at the MIT EurekaFest this spring.

Whitewater teachers working with the InvenTeam students are Carolyn Smith, engineering and technology, and Dr. Ted Wansley, science.

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Joint Masters Degree in Water Resources Management Launched

The Georgia Water Resource Management Institute (GWRI) and the University of Pretoria Water Institute (UPWI) have launched of a Master of Science in Water Resources Management degree. The new joint degree program is being offered through the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

“Sustainable water resources development and management are key to economic development and societal change in Africa,” said Professor Aris Georgakakos of Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of GWRI. “This is because water resources are the basis of agricultural activities which, in Africa, employ more than 80 percent of the labor force and generate more than 50 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, water resources support hydropower development, which powers industrial growth.”

Understanding water-related issues and disciplines has a vital impact on environmental and socio-economic change, according to the Georgakakos. “The joint degree program was created with these needs in mind,” he noted. “This educational and applied research program combines the expertise and strengths of the two water institutes with the goal of creating qualified specialists who will ably serve African governments, industries and academia.”

“Currently the world is experiencing a water crisis,” said Professor Eugene Cloete, head of the University of Pretoria’s Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology and leader of the Southern Education and Research Alliance (SERA) Water Task Team. “The collection, dissemination and exchange of water-related information and know-how is therefore a matter of priority to improve the sharing of knowledge and building human capacity concerning water-related issues.”

The UPWI currently has 45 students enrolled at the master’s and PhD levels, including students from Kenya, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Nigeria, Canada, Germany and Mozambique.

GWRI was established in 1964 and is part of a network of water resources institutes operating in each U.S. state. Georgia Tech and GWRI have worldwide research and education involvement including North and South America, Europe, China, Singapore, India and Africa. In particular, GWRI’s involvement in Africa spans more than 20 years and has focused on developing prototype information and decision support systems for water, energy, and environmental resources planning and management in the Nile and Congo River basins. This work is carried out through collaborative relationships with the governments of Burundi, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.