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Coastweek-- 26 countries, 146 projects, over 200 participants, 5 categories, and 6 students. These are only a few statistics about the recent Golden Climate International Environmental Project Olympiad, held in Nairobi from Tuesday 29th April to Friday 2nd May.

The Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, an education centre that promotes holistic learning and international leadership participated in the fourth annual edition of the Golden Climate Science Competition, held by the Light Academy Schools in Nairobi.

The competition was focused around the theme of environments and sustainable development this year, in a bid to provide a golden climate for a golden generation, and was divided into five categories including engineering, environment, energy, agriculture and the junior category for younger participants.

The Aga Khan Academy students had the privilege of entering their projects in four of the above categories.

Yasin Ghani, of Grade 10 entered in the junior category, created a solar powered plane that could be used for farming purposes around the country.

Maxwin Omondi and Shivam Vyas of DP1 entered in the energy category and created a prototype of electricity generation through a magnetic field.

Magdalena Gakuo and Cindy Makau of Grade 10 entered in the agriculture category and created an organic pesticide.

Karishma Bhagani of DP1 entered in the engineering category and created a cost effective water purifier made from traditional elements.

The above mentioned students had the opportunity of competing at the national level, from schools all over the country including Njoro Boys High School and SCLP Samaj School, among many others from different counties around Kenya.

The national level was a challenging competition, however all students were victorious and bagged 5 gold and 1 bronze medal, including a handsome some of money respectively.

Maxwin Omondi, Shivam Vyas, Karishma Bhagani, Magdalena Gakuo and Cindy Makau received gold medals and Yasin Ghani received a bronze medal.

This further made them all eligible to enter the international competition which was held a week ago at the KICC grounds in Nairobi.

The international round was much more competitive with a total of 26 countries represented under different categories during the fair.

Students from USA, Germany, Bosnia, Nigeria, South Africa and Brazil among a plethora of other countries attended the science fair to showcase their work and compete with students.

Although the competition was healthy and challenging, the students most importantly enjoyed the experience of meeting new students and engaging in intellectual discussions at the fair.

Nonetheless, the school bagged 3 silver medals (Magdalena Gakuo, Cindy Makau and Yasin Ghani) in the junior and agriculture categories, and 1 gold medal (Karishma Bhagani) in the engineering category, also yielding a handsome some of money.

Also, the engineering project received an invitation to attend a conference in Turkey, to show case their research work.

Not only did this mean victory for the school, but also a potential scientific breakthrough for the country, in providing a sustain-able and more environmentally friendly future.

Upon speaking to the students, most of them credited their victory to their hard work, and the assistance from their supervisors, Mr. Godfrey Kokeyo and Mrs. Alice Ndungu, the biology teachers at the academy.

They further mentioned that the scientific research and presentation skills that are acquired due to the intensity of the curriculum at the academy were benefactors which highly skewed victory to their side.

Overall, it was an enriching experience, and such science fairs are indeed the ideal manner in which a golden climate and a sustainable future can be achieved.