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News > Science and Tech

11-Year-Old Girl Develops Lead-Detecting Technology

  • Rao was touched by the water crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan which began in 2014.

    Rao was touched by the water crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan which began in 2014. | Photo: Reuters

Published 25 October 2017
Opinion

"I was most affected about Flint, Michigan because of the amount of people that were getting affected by the lead in water," the young scientist said.

Gitanjali Rao won the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist,” during a national contest for her invention that detects lead in water, after seeing the effects of the Flint water crisis.

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"Tethys, the Greek goddess of fresh water, is a lead detection tool. What you do is first dip a disposable cartridge, which can easily be removed and attached to the core device in the water you wish to test,” the 11-year-old girl told Reuters.

“Once you do that, that's basically the manual part. Then you just pull out an app on your phone and check your status (to see if it's safe). So that's just very simple, about like a 10 to 15-second process," Rao said.

Along with the title, the seventh grader also won a cash prize of US$25,000 at the 2017 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge for the invention.

The water crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan — which began in 2014 after a decision to change the city’s water source — caused high lead contamination to run through the veins of the city and affect the lives of its working-class residents in the former factory town.

In 2015, the crisis in Flint erupted when the tests found high amounts of lead in blood samples taken from children in the predominantly Black city of about 100,000 people.

"I was most affected about Flint, Michigan because of the amount of people that were getting affected by the lead in water. And I also realized that it wasn't just in Flint, Michigan and there were over 5,000 water systems in the U.S. alone,” Rao said.

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“In the beginning of my final presentation at the event, I talked about a little boy named Opemipo, he's 10 years old and lives in Flint, Michigan. He has 1 percent elevated lead levels in his blood and he's among the thousands of adults and children exposed to the harmful effects of lead in water. So it's a pretty big deal out there today," she explained.

From start to finish, Tethys took five months to create, the young scientist told Reuters.

"My first couple of times when I was doing my experimentation and test, I did fail so many times and it was frustrating, but I knew that it was just a learning experience and I could definitely develop my device further by doing even more tests and getting advice from my mentor as well. So, never be afraid to try," Rao said.

Six Flint officials have since been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

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