R Ricardo introduced Hana Haytuoglu and Hanna MacAustin, two ENSS grade 11 students who were invited to attend the International Science Fair in Abu Dhabi in September this year.
In grade 9, these two women started a project to create a bio degradable plastic from potato starch. Since grade 9 they have been testing and refining their product that will bio degrade in 12 days.
Hana Haytuoglu will be our outbound exchange student in 2020 to 2021.
Hana and Hanna shared slides and some stories of their 6 days in Abu Dhabi in late September as a delegation to the International Science Fair.
They are still developing their bio-plastic, with testing on going to make sure it is not toxic to environment or people. Also to make it thinner and more durable.
In Abu Dhabi there were 63 countries represented and about 3,000 students. They met many others students and now keep in daily contact with some of them. They met a Russian girl who had a similar project. They got to know particularly other students with booths close to their booth. They were part of about 50 kids as part of team Canada. They particularly got to know some others from Yukon and Quebec. Also couple from Mexico that had booth beside them and some German students.
They were able to take some tours including a Mosque for which they had to be completely covered (in 43 degree temperatures). The Mosque was beautiful and big, would hold 41,000 worshipers. They toured oldest building, World Trade Centre and local market. In Mosque they could not even show hair and got in trouble when some was sticking out around their faces.
At the Science Fair many booths were interactive. School groups would come through to visit and see the booths. They were surprised that students were learning science things at much younger grades than in Canada.
They got to ride a camel and then later same day to eat camel.
It was a 13 hour direct flight. The return flight was much more relaxed as the 50 Canadian students knew each other, had friendships and they visited and mingled during the return flight.
They thanked Rotary for our donation and helping to make this trip possible for them.