3 Culver students compete in international round of World Food Prize

 

Three Culver Academies students who wrote research papers about food insecurity challenges have been selected as delegates for the World Food Prize Foundation Global Youth Institute in October.

Ray (Xinlang) Fan ’25 and roommates Jayme Euh ’25 and Anika Jyothinagaram ’25, all members of Culver’s Global Studies Institute, will travel to Des Moines, Iowa, in October to take part in the program and engage with peers from around the world.

Rebecca Hodges, Ph.D., a senior humanities instructor at Culver and director of the Global Studies Institute, said it’s the first time Culver has had three students invited to take part in the Global Youth Institute. In past  years Culver had one student invited.

“It really speaks to the quality of research and research presentation that the students were able to achieve,” Hodges said. “They were recognized for having the most well researched and sound proposed solutions.”

Students will present research they conducted to a panel of experts and take part in an interactive group project focused on global food security challenges. They also will attend workshops where they will learn from leaders on issues related to food security, agriculture, climate change and sustainability.

The students also will be able to attend the Borlaug Dialogues, named for Norman Borlaug, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his part in the Green Revolution, which dramatically increased crop yields and reduced the threat of starvation in many countries.

“The Borlaug Dialogues are attended by heads of state, presidents of international and multinational companies, politicians, heads of foundations and thinktanks where they communicate and try to plan ways to reduce food insecurity,” Hodges said. “High school students are invited to participate in the Borlaug Dialogues as part of the Global Youth Institute.”

Borlaug, who died in 2009, took the money he received from winning the Nobel Prize to create the World Food Prize in 1986 to recognize scientists and others who have improved the quality and availability of food.  

John Ruan Sr., an Iowa businessman and philanthropist, created the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute in 1994 to foster interest in science and agriculture and increase awareness of critical issues of food security among high school students. His son, the late John Ruan III, a 1961 graduate of Troop B and a member of the Culver Educational Foundation Board of Trustees, served as chairman of the World Food Prize Foundation for two decades.

“That alumni connection has been a strong part of why Culver has encouraged students to participate in the World Food Prize,” Hodges said. “It is a really significant way a Culver alum has had a huge role in trying to reduce food insecurity and trying to achieve a world where everybody eats.”

Students are invited to attend based on the quality of their research and their presentations at regional levels. Nine Culver students presented their papers at Purdue University in April and Fan, Jyothinagaram and Euh were selected to advance. All nine students were recognized as Borlaug Scholars, which makes them eligible for scholarships, internships and other opportunities.

 

 

Students have to present the context of the problem they are trying to solve and their innovative solutions and why their proposals would work.

All three Culver students began working on their proposal as part of an AP World History class assignment where students had to identify a problem, find a country encountering the problem and write a research paper where they propose possible solutions.

Jyothinagaram wanted her solution to involve Tanzania because she had gone there as part of a Global Pathways Spring program and saw that public school students weren’t being fed nutritious lunches.

Her idea was to make ugali, a food usually prepared from maize, and instead make it from amaranth, a leafy grain that grows in Tanzania that is more nutritious than corn.

“A student who has better nutrients can perform better in the classroom,” she said.

She later proposed incorporating moringa into the making of collard greens. She said it also could be used to make ugali. Moringa is a green leaf that grows on trees that is high in vitamins A and C, calcium, zinc, iron, magnesium and potassium.

“By incorporating these foods into a student’s daily intake would help them to get the nutrients needed to do well in the classroom,” she said.

Jyothinagaram, who is interested in a career in global studies or foreign affairs, said this is especially important in Tanzania because students in primary schools and middle schools are given tests and if they don’t pass their academic careers are basically over.

“So if students don’t have good nutrition they aren’t able to continue with their education which just exacerbates the cycle of poverty,” she said.

She said it would have to be implemented slowly so farmers would have time to adjust their crops. She said one challenge is that moringa has a bitter taste. But she said that could be fixed through boiling the moringa as well as other cooking techniques.

Euh proposed using magnetometry and electromagnetic induction to safely survey land in Laos, which has a major problem with unexploded ordnance. Laos was the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. More than 2 million tons of ordnance were dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War and estimates indicate about 30 percent did not explode on impact.

More than 8,000 people have been killed in the five decades since the war ended, including 21 people so far this year.

“Unexploded ordnances inhibit farmers in Laos from farming because you can lose your life farming. Eliminating that fear would allow them to utilize the land,” Euh said.

Euh proposed using autonomous vehicles. She also proposed improving the internet connection in rural areas so rural farmers can see what areas are safe to farm.

Euh, who is undecided about what she plans to major in at college but is leaning toward East Asian studies or cultural studies, said she learned a lot from attending the program at Purdue in April.

“I learned there are so many different ways to apply ideas to solve the food insecurity issue,” she said.

Fan proposed a way of improving nutrition and water sanitation at the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. Like Jyothinagaram, Fan proposes using moringa as part of his solution.

The refugee camp is home to about 800,000 people that includes about 30 individual camps that struggle with poor nutrition and water sanitation. Fan proposes having the refugees grow moringa in community gardens that would bring the refugees together to grow and harvest the leafy plants.

Because moringa is both non-toxic and biodegradable, it also can act as a natural coagulating agent in the water purification process, providing safe and clean drinking water to the refugees.

“I feel like this would have many multi-faceted solutions to the problems,” said Fan, who is interested in studying biology and neuroscience at college.

All the students said they are looking forward to attending Global Youth Institute. Natalia Somma Tang ’24 presented her research at the Global Youth Institute last year. Hodges said Somma Tang was instrumental in providing a pre-competition workshop for Culver contestants this year.

The event last year featured the presidents of Ethiopia and Kosovo, the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and ministers from Guyana, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zambia.

“These are big figures who have made real change. It’s just amazing that as high school students we can see how adults are initiating real changes in their countries,” Jyothinagaram said. “I’m really excited to network with other individuals with the same ambitions and want to change the world in a positive way.”