Young scientists from Taos High School won the top prize at a national army-sponsored contest that asks students to come up with real-world solutions to problems in their communities.
Ninth-graders in Taos figured out how to create inexpensive filters to remove antibiotics from drinking water. On Friday, June 20, they won $20,000 for their efforts, plus an additional $5,000 grant for the next phase of their work鈥攊mplementation.
They made the filters out of crushed blue crab shells that cost a little less than four bucks each, and developed a method for removing most of the antibiotics from the water. So what鈥檚 next? Student Andrea Chin Lopez explained: 鈥淲e hope to expand this project so we can remove variables like allergens, and we also want to implement it on a larger scale. And in the long run we want to push for legislation to include antibiotics and other prescription drugs as something that is tested for as part of the Safe Drinking Water Act."
The students say they鈥檒l use their winnings for college.
