KOCHI: She was among lakhs of students who had to stay indoors at the time of the pandemic, but Indira Arjun, 11, was not ready to idle away her time. Instead, the Thiruvananthpuram girl, assisted by her grandmother, started doing science experiments.
Her passion and focus bore fruits as she made an eco-friendly, cost-effective mosquito trap modelled on Ovillanta using old tyres. Researchers at Laurentian University in Canada had developed Ovillanta. During its testing in Mexico and Guatemala, it was found effective in controlling Aedes population, which transmits diseases such as Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika.
“Her grandmother Rani Pradeep a retired biology teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya had given Indira the task of recreating Ovillanta during the lockdown days,” said her mother Aparna Gangadharan.
“To make the trap, I used a 13-inch old tyre, a hanger, PVC pipe, silicone glue, a ball valve, PVC glue, filter paper and a bottle filled with water,” said Indira.
“The tyre was cut into two pieces and a hole was made under the bottom of one of them. The PVC pipe was inserted int o the hole and fixed using silicone glue. At the open end of the pipe, a ball valve was attached and hay-infused water was poured inside the tyre structure. Filter papers were then placed on both sides of the tyre structure and they acted as landing strips for the mosquitoes to lay eggs.
The structure can be hung from walls or in gardens anywhere inside or outside the house. Every three days, the ball valve of the drain pipe was opened and the solution was filtered using a cloth to collect the mosquito larvae,” she explained.
“The mosquito eggs and larvae deposited on the filter cloth were destroyed using a chlorine solution. The filtrate can be reused because it contains pheromones released by Aedes mosquitoes, which attract other mosquitoes. The trap is seven times more effective than other such traps,” said Indira.
“Two Ovillanta traps are sufficient to reduce the Aedes mosquito population in a one-acre area. As the trap is cost-effective, and simple, the health department can readily adopt the method for vector management,” said Aparna.
Earlier, Indira had made effective use of the augmented reality technology to create edu-tech videos for teaching primary class students about different wild and domestic animals. The video was appreciated by many including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.