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Challenge Team Abstract

team number: 45 School Name: Gallup High School Area of Science: Agriculture Chemistry Project Title: Dibe bighaahaidiigil naaish

There are many types of wool (dibe bighaa) all over the world (nahasdzaan) and it is a major industry. We would like to know what kind of wool is capable of accepting different types of dyes better than other types of wool. Some wool go throught several dye cycles to hold their color.

In our project we will be studying wool from a mixed breed of sheep raised on the Navajo Reservation. They will be: Navajo contour sheep, Suffolk sheep, Angora goat (mohair), and Llama. We well attempt to determine what type of wool will accept traditonal (herbal) dyes best. We will also repeat these tests using commercial dye.

Each sample will be woven by (donny's) grandmother, washed many times, and exposed to direct sunlight.

We want to determind what type of sheep wool, and dye type should be used so that the traditional beautiful hand woven rugs the Navajo people make last longer. The result of our project might be used in many industries. This way people can make a choice about which specific breed of animal to raise and dye type to use for producing clothing, and rugs.

We predict that the breed that was first introduced to us by the Spanish will be the best because it has been in our traditional rugs since the 1700's. We want to take and anyalysis of the wool and see if we can create mathematical models that would predict accuratley which wool would accpet which dyes better.

Team Members

Team Mail

• Lavina Becenti
• Donny Jones

Tom Kaus

• Tom Kaus

Project Advisor(s)