On Wednesday 25 March our Year 7 Science class met up with a group of engineers called: ‘Engineers Without Borders’ (EWB). They are a group of engineers that work to try to fix problems in other countries. They were talking to us about the Tonlé Sap Lake in Cambodia, where the people live in floating houses on the water. In the dry season houses are built on tall stilts that sit just above the water in the flood season. However in that season, the people lack access to plumbing, cooking gas, areas to dispose waste, resources and many more things. The only way to dispose of waste (including human waste) is by tipping it into the water. This causes many more problems like water contamination that causes disease.
EWB has been looking for a way to make the Tonlé Sap cleaner. They invented the biodigester that floats on water and helps remove waste from water. It is a toilet, that instead of releasing human waste into water, it releases clean water and methane gas is collected so that it can be used for cooking.
We had to design a floating house and see how well it would float by placing marbles on it. We were given five units to spend, each leftover unit counting as an extra fifteen marbles. We had choice between: 1 balloon, 1 cup, 1 sheet of cardboard, 4 straws, 4 paddle pop sticks, 30cm of sticky tape, 30cm of glad wrap and 30cm of aluminium foil. Every invention was different and some held a lot more marbles then others. Some groups got more points because they used less materials.
We had a really fun lesson, and everyone learnt a lot about the water situation in Cambodia, and how much the EWB really do for them.
By Alyssa Facioni
