El Verde, in the Peruvian district of Jayanca, is a rural area far from the urban center. There are no pharmacies, markets or roads for cars to enter anywhere. The main gathering point is the school: the Carlos Mariátegui Educational Institution. Imagine the pride when in 2024 the winners of the country’s Solve for Tomorrow program came out of there: the “Rhizobium” project, created by four students in the fifth year of secondary school, the last year of compulsory schooling.
The mediator teacher, Juana Puicón, was in her first-year teaching Science and Technology at the school and the students are residents of four nearby communities. The group created a biological fertilizer as a sustainable STEM solution in agriculture, the main local economic activity. They observed that trucks loaded with urea, a chemical fertilizer marketed massively in the world, were constantly arriving. So, they decided to think of an alternative: rhizobium: a bacteria that lives in the soil, especially in agricultural soil. “If a farmer plants some kind of legume, by just placing the seed in the ground and it sprouts, the roots release a hormone that calls these free bacteria in the soil to make an association,” Puicon teaches.
In this biological association, the plant provides shelter for the bacteria and, on the other hand, this microorganism in agriculture breaks down the nitrogen in the environment to nourish the plant. This nitrogen can replace urea. “The problem is that there are many soils damaged by insecticide, pesticide and herbicide excesses. This means that the natural microbiology of the soil is not enhanced,” says the teacher.
Appreciation of Science in Schools
The teacher believes that reaching this idea is the result of the school appreciating science, despite the logistical difficulties and the lack of internet connection in the place. “Here, I have a laboratory just for my classes, which makes it easier for my students to experiment,” she emphasizes.
Puicon is a biologist and has already studied microorganisms. Taking advantage of the new space, she brought her own microscope from home and the students were delighted with the equipment. In addition, the school already had experience with Project-Based Learning and maintains that you learn more when you build something. For “Rhizobium”, then, the idea started from an exercise of inquiry and reflection on environmental problems at a global level. By discovering a new world behind the microscope, the students learned that there are microorganisms in agriculture that can improve the environment and decided to go down this path.
An important ally was a brother from Puicon, who is a farmer and allowed the team to plant part of his land. In fertile soil without chemicals, the students got to work and planted legumes. When they grew, the first step was to obtain the root nodules, which are new organs consisting mainly of plant cells infected with Bacteroides that provide nitrogen fixation. That is, they cut a part of the root to extract the bacteria.
The plants were grown in a laboratory, in jars with water, without soil, using a material called vermiculite, which is like a small stone filled with micronutrients, and the seeds inoculated with rhizobium were placed there. They found that the use of biological fertilizer is effective and reduces the dependence of local agriculture on other types. The benefits of biofertilizers include having a more organic and natural plantation, in addition to reducing production costs and the dependence on purchasing fertilizers from other countries.
Each new situation that was presented to us was another opportunity for learning, for scientific inquiry, and the students were obtaining and improving their work until they reached a refined one to win,” says the educator.
The challenges to achieve the results of the biological fertilizer
In addition to this situation, the young people faced other obstacles. Still in the laboratory phase, there was a fungal infestation in the plantation. They were using white sugar to fix the bacteria to the seed, but once again the climate in the rural area made it difficult. It is a very humid area, conducive to fungi. They had to change to vegetable oil as a fixative.
The entire project took six months dedication. In the greenhouse stage, they planted pallar beans and chileno beans, and used several groups with different combinations of seeds and bacteria to test how each one would behave. “We did another test, sowing in sterile soil, where we added seeds without bacteria and we put urea. All the work demonstrated the greater efficiency of the bacteria compared to urea,” she concludes.
Trying until you succeed
The teacher had already considered participating in Solve for Tomorrow when she worked at another school, but the registration dates had already passed. In 2024, she had forgotten about the program when she received a contact from the organizers of the initiative and decided to sign up for the first time.
With the support of the school’s director, she thought about enrolling ten groups with whom she was already working on STEM projects in class. “But it seemed like a small program, with few participants. When I realized how big Solve for Tomorrow was, we were already enrolled and I was worried. We are from such a small community, how were we going to compete with the big schools in urban areas?” she recalls.
Of the 10 projects, “Rhizobium” was the one that advanced to the final. When it won the program nationwide, the teacher said it was a turning point for the school community. “The school had never entered into a competition. The children had never traveled by plane. My dream was just to get to the final, that was much more than we imagined,” she says, excited.
The project still won the online vote, even though there are only 120 students in the institution: “I don’t know where they got so many votes, but they were talking to everyone they knew and they created a huge mobilization.”
Puicon believes that more teachers and even family members can now see the potential of science for positive social transformation. Young people are also increasingly excited and encouraged by the idea of entering the teacher’s laboratory and creating their own projects.
