Broken Arrow High School Students Receive $10K Grant From M.I.T.

Fish food, of all things, is connecting Broken Arrow high school students to Kenya.

A bunch of brainiac B.A. students are developing food sources for African tilapia, and it's all for a cause.

Two years ago, Broken Arrow's Donna Gradel took five students to Africa to clean up fish ponds - something called aquaponics.

"When I was in high school, I never had an opportunity like this," Gradel said.

The Kenyan government provides tilapia to orphans, and the orphans grow and eat the fish.

"Our target is to try to feed 140 orphans twice a week," she said.

The tilapia, however, don't have enough food to grow fast enough to feed all the orphans which is the reason the science project was born.

The group of intelligent, highly motivated students pair algae, insect larvae and natural fillers to feed African tilapia.

The goal is that, someday, the Kenyan people could replicate their formula and make and sell their own fish food.

"My dream would be that this would really work, that we could build a facility and we could actually employ some of the orphans when they get through school," Gradel said.

They know it's a long shot, but the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it's giving the team of Broken Arrow high school inventors a $10,000 grant.

"We're the first Invent Team to ever get a grant in a public school and in Broken Arrow, or Oklahoma that is," said student Addison Wimpee.

Student Tram Le said, "We could maybe help an entire country with our design."

This spring, the team will fly to Boston to present their project to M.I.T. faculty.

It's a project that, if it works, could give the students a giant career boost and could feed and employ hundreds of Kenyans.

"It's humanitarian, it's science, it's math, it's engineering, it's compassion, you know, it's the whole ball," Gradel said.

The M.I.T. grant is intended to get more problem-solving math and science in schools, hoping to improve the fact that the U.S. is trailing behind other countries in those areas.