The Kenya Science and Engineering Fair (KSEF) is proving to be a catalyst for innovation, empowering students to identify needs within their communities and develop solutions.
During the Rift Valley region KSEF competition held at AIC Moi girls’ high school in Maralal town, two students from Nasokol girls’ high school in West Pokot County have recognized the need to boost the government’s initiative of planting 15 billion trees by 2032 to increase tree cover to 30 percent from the current 8.8 percent.
The form four students Nam Shavin and Camilla Lagat have innovated a way of making paper using buffalo grass, away from the traditional method of using trees and in the process addressing deforestation, environmental degradation and climate change.
The innovation under the chemistry category dubbed ‘Shala paper from buffalo grass,’ uses the readily available buffalo grass and Madeira vine leaves locally known as nderema.
Shavin explains that the eco-friendly grass making process takes about 12 hours by first boiling the grass and adding two molar sodium carbonate solution to dissolve the aligning in grass, secondly the madeira vines are blended to obtain a slurry slime which aids in the paper making.
“Mix the grass and the blended madeira vines inside a plastic basin to obtain a slurry mixture which is later placed on A4 sized boards and covered to dry by slow evaporation,” She explained.
Shavin noted that the thickness of the paper is determined by the amount of slurry slime poured in the A4 molded boards.
Camilla Lagat thanked the education ministry for providing a platform for young scientists and urged the government to allocate more funding towards students’ research and innovations which will reduce the number of imported products flooding the local market.
“We urge publishing companies and schools to take up our innovation because it is eco-friendly since grass is a renewable resource which takes a shorter time to grow compared to trees,” she added.
They noted that the project also aims at solving the paper production in Kenya noting that there is no paper producing company after the closure of Webuye pan per mill in 2009.
KSEF rift valley region chairman Kipchumba Korir said that KSEF is one of the core curricular activities in schools which deals with innovations which can steer the country to great technological advancements.
He said that KSEF will seamlessly fit well with the recently introduced Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) without challenges since it emphasizes on practical skills, critical thinking and real-world application unlike the 8-4-4 system which emphasizes on academic achievements.
Korir noted that high school science has undergone a lot of reforms in the last ten years and Kenyan students have participated and won international innovation fairs and their innovations need to be protected.
“There is a challenge in patenting the students’ innovations because of the tedious process of registration and we are appealing to the relevant authorities to help protect the students’ ideas by patenting them.” He said.
The rift valley region KSEF competitions was attended by over 800 students and featured projects from 13 diverse fields for the students to base their innovations such as mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, agriculture, food economics, robotics, biotechnology, environmental science, computer science, applied technology, transport and lastly computer science.
By Robert Githu
