STEM-In-Action Spring Scoop: CQuestrators

It's time to check in again with our STEM-In-Action Grant winning teams! If you're new to the eCYBERMISSION blog, the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) awards STEM-In-Action Grants of up to $5,000 to eCYBERMISSION teams that wish to further develop and implement their projects in their communities. Typically, only five teams receive a STEM-In-Action grant, but this year ten teams took home the award. Today, we've got team CQuestrators here to tell us about their project!

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Hello! This is Veda and Varsha, The CQuestrators! We are 8th graders from Herndon, Virginia, and have been selected as one of the STEM-in-Action Grant recipients as well as the winners for our project, the carbon sink pellets. We would like to give an update on our progress!

As a reminder, here is a bit of background of our project: 

In 2019, about 36.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide was produced globally. We identified the problem of the increase in carbon emissions in our community due to urbanization, burning of fossil fuels, and cutting down trees. This impacts our community with rising sea levels and increase in health issues in addition to the global impact. We researched carbon sinks, which are natural or artificial reservoirs that absorb vast amounts of CO2. Soil (specifically the microorganisms in the soil) is an essential carbon sink. In urban environments, trees are being cut down and soil is being excavated, liberating trapped CO2. Our community needs a solution to help absorb carbon emissions. We acknowledged this and wanted to make a solution. 

In order to solve this problem, we made a solution called the Carbon Sink Pellets! After researching, we came up with three materials to absorb carbon dioxide within the soil as an amplifier to the soil’s original CO2 absorption capabilities. These materials are zeolite (an aluminum silicate material that acts like a filter), cow manure, and clay. 

In the Nysmith School Gardens, we have implemented the pellets in the soil and currently it is the second week of CO2 absorption. The pellets lay in a 2 by 4 bed, along with another 2 by 4 bed (without pellets) as a control. We wanted to make sure that all types of plants complement nicely with the Carbon Sink Pellets. We have tried to add the main types of plants in the 2 by 4 garden beds, so far we have potatoes, flowers, pumpkins, etc. We have planted potato plants along the side of each 2 by 4 bed (both the control and the testing bed) as one of the many plants we will be adding. A real time goal for the Nysmith Implementation is to germinate the pumpkin, flowers, and other seeds and plant them in time for the supposedly warm climate of March/April. Alongside these events, we have also been getting samples every week to send to Virginia tech for official results and confirmation. So far, a week has gone by since planting the pellets; we currently have an original sample of the soil before the experiment and we have a sample of the soil after one week of CO2 absorption. A future goal is to finish the implementation at both schools and send the results to Virginia tech. A speed bump is that our original beds had to be removed because of some technical issues from Nysmith, however we adjusted by using one of the original 4 by 8 beds and doing the experiment there instead. It was a bit of a confusing process as to why our original garden beds did not work, however in the end we reached a consensus and still got our experiment started in time. That was the biggest challenge to date as it is easy to type it out in a blog, in real time it was a long, tedious process along the chain of command; but all that matters is we still implemented the pellets in time and the experiment started on schedule. 

The next phase is to implement the carbon sink pellets at Rachel Carson Middle School. We have reached out to the garden club sponsors and have all the permissions to finally implement at RCMS. We already bought the materials to create our pellets, such as zeolite, clay, and mycorrhizal fungi, and also tools to use during the implementation process such as CO2 probes. Our plan of action is this: first, make the carbon sink pellets and keep the tools ready for implementation. Second, build the garden beds, add the pellets into the soil, and also add the control flowers that are needed. Finally, take samples every week using the CO2 probe and other tools and send it to the Virginia Tech lab to get officially tested and analyze our findings.

Links to publicity we have received:

• https://carsonms.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/1
• https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/VAEDUFCPS/bulletins/2e4fe13
• https://sungazette.news/local-students-find-success-in-real-world-stem-competition/
• https://www.insidenova.com/news/fairfax/middle-schoolers-find-success-in-ecybermission-competition/article_a9243ede-be19-11eb-8a68-3bb207880ae1.html
• http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/local-middle-schoolers-create-a-solution-to-help-the-environment/article_6cc97130-daa6-11eb-bb89-f7ca8fbb0584.html
• https://www.facebook.com/GOeCYBER/photos/a.10150251996628570/10159625730293570
• https://www.facebook.com/GOeCYBER/photos/a.10150251996628570/10159623432728570/
• https://ecybermission.blogspot.com/2021/07/taking-home-top-our-2021-national.html?fbclid=IwAR1m8sdeUmETAGBQU-4Ml-iLRmMoldnipaHP0DoTlXGnxa95fApp4LcuWos
• https://www.viralnigeria.com.ng/four-student-teams-named-national-winners-of-2020-21-ecybermission-competition/
• https://www.yahoo.com/now/four-student-teams-named-national-130000211.html 

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Absorbing CO2 while planting beautiful flowers and vegetable plants? What a gorgeous way to help your community! We're excited to see the final analysis!

Faith Benner

AEOP Senior Communications and Marketing Specialist