Team: 81
School: Socorro High
Area of Science: Botany
Proposal:
As the population of the earth grows, the availability of freshwater is dwindling. Fresh, usable, and accessible water comprises an extremely small amount of the total water of the Earth. According to the United States Geological Survey, freshwater comprises an estimated 2.5% of the Earth’s total water and 68.7% of that water is sealed inside glaciers and ice, meaning only about 31.3% of Earth’s freshwater is actually accessible-with a large majority being groundwater. Modern desalination methods are inefficient and expensive, but there is an alternative solution.
With genetically modified organism (GMO) technology, we can modify halophytes (salt tolerant plants) to churn out fresh water. The black mangrove is one of the most widespread mangroves, and are plants that actively filter salt out of water to survive. They live in saline environments and filtrate salt through their layered roots. They then dispose of salt by using glands in their leaves, which makes it convenient as salt is not reintroduced into the water. We are proposing the creation of genetically modified black mangroves that grow quickly and are downsized (estimated proportions to less than two feet tall ) to create an optimal set of traits for hydroponic and compact environments. We hope to achieve an efficient, cheap, and environmentally friendly way of creating drinkable water. We will simulate the GMO Mangrove using a computer model developed in C++.
Sponsoring Teacher/Mentor - Jay Garcia
Team Members:
Cody Johnston
Elias Zheng
Rio Sessions
Sponsoring Teacher: Jay Garcia