Ghanaian and American team members met for the first time at the competition, held in Washington, D.C. Ryan Eskalis/NPR
It was a meeting of nerds and sharks.
The self-described
"biotech nerds" and "robotic nerds" were seven high school students from
Washington, D.C. The eight teens who call themselves "sharks" and flew
in from Ghana. "The shark is a big fish so it means you're big.
Knowledgeable," explains Stephanie Obbo of Ghana, an aspiring medical
doctor.
Together, the 15 high schoolers formed a team for the first World Smarts STEM Challenge. That's a science competition run by
IREX,
a global development nonprofit that strives to promote student
enthusiasm for science, tech, engineering and math (aka STEM). Each of
the 17 teams had teenagers in the D.C. area partnering with Ghanaians to
identify and solve a real-world problem. NPR's Goats and Soda followed
"Team McKwiny" — a name that blends D.C.'s McKinley Technology High
School and Winneba Senior High School in Ghana.
They had
collaborated since September over the internet. The Americans kicked
around the idea of minimizing carbon emissions. The Ghanaians wanted to
tackle water pollution. They finally agreed to design and build a water
purifier.
Both contingents had a personal stake in the project. The
McKinley students found high levels of lead in the Anacostia River that
flows through Washington, D.C. And the Winneba students in southern
Ghana found pesticides, hospital waste, sewage and other pollutants in a
nearby lagoon used for
