…AS OUR STUDENTS TRAVEL TO US, TO SHOW THE WORLD HOW TO KILL MOSQUITO WITH ORANGE PEELS!

That simple incident aroused his curiosity, as he wondered why apples always tumble down, while the pale August moon continued to sail contentedly overhead.

These thoughts later crystallised into Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation. The falling of an apple was all it took to trigger off a major scientific work. He was able to calculate that a falling apple would be pulled downward about 10 miles, but the moon would fall toward the earth only about 16 ft. Today, Newton has engraved his name in gold in the pages of history as a renowned physicist and mathematician.

Similarly one day, last year, one of the JETS (Junior Engineers and Technicians) students at Doregos Private Academy, Ipaja, Lagos, a girl, went to Ayobo village, in Lagos suburb and saw them burning orange peels to drive away mosquitoes. She felt there must be something in those peels that can drive away insects. On returning to the school, she told her story in a meeting of JETS club.

Miss Fatiha Olabisi, a 15-year-old student of the school was surfing the Internet one day when she decided to find out the chemical components of the orange peels. Fatiha discovered that orange peels, which were often discarded as waste, held the key to the age-long war against mosquitoes, vectors of malaria.

Today, Fatiha and two other female students of Doregos Academy, Quadri Sukurat and Abiodun Yetunde have become pioneer student scientists, sort of, in the country, promoting the use of orange peels in the production of insecticide, seasoning, herbal beverage, hand-wash, stain-remover, and even chocolate candies. All the students in the project group are in SS2, and also active members of JETS club of their school.

Presentations and exhibitions
Recently, the 'wonder kids' presented their work at the National Science Festival, organised for schools nationwide in Abuja. From hundreds of presentations made at the exhibition, the group emerged as the overall best and were also chosen, along with other two schools, to represent Nigeria at this year's INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair holding in Los Angeles, USA, from May 8 to 13.

Other schools include School for the Gifted, Abuja, and Omat School, Ikorodu, Lagos. Education Review visited the amazing kids recently at their school in Ipaja, an institution that prides itself as the 'College of Champions'.

Located inside Federal Low Cost Housing Estate (Shagari Estate), Akinogun bus stop, Ipaja, the institution was ventilated with the serenity of a world-class school. The school, founded in 1990, has St Bernadette's Private School, for nursery and primary pupils. In what could be described as a heritage of excellence, two of the 'wonder girls', were discovered to have attended St Bernadette's in their infancy.

During the encounter, our reporter gathered that Sukurat and Fatiha attended St Bernadette's School while Yetunde attended St Monica, Ikorodu. But they also share a lot in common. They are both 15. They are all in SSS2 Science class. They also belong to the JETS club. Sukurat and Yetunde want to pursue a career in Medicine, but Fatiha wants to read Pharmacy.

Surprisingly, the three girls are not the closest friends in the school. Although they share interest in research work, they live world apart in social relationship. However, one strong bond that unites them is their devotion to work, and their allied force against insects, especially mosquitoes. The three girls hate mosquito with great passion, as they described it as the most unwanted enemy in every household.

It took this reporter over two hours listening to the girls explain step-by-step process of their research work. The group leader, Fatiha, who also initiated the project, has every detail of the work on her finger tips. Hear her: 'The project is basically about locally-made things.

Every single thing we used was sourced locally. For the liquid insecticide, dried orange peels were collected, soaked in water for four to seven days just to aid the separation of the oil. You can achieve this also in two ways. Either you soak the orange peels or you grind the orange peels with water. If you have much time, you can soak it in water but if you are short of time, you can grind it together with water. The next thing is to decant the oil to get the liquid.

'For the mosquito coil, orange peels were grinded and later roasted. After the roasting, they were mixed with water and starch to enable us mould it to the shape of a coil. But we discovered that when we used starch, it took the coil much longer time to burn, which means that it wouldn't produce the smoke fast. So, we mixed it with water and dried it in an oven. You may also sun-dry it if the oven is not available. We have not really molded it into the normal shape of mosquito coil you find in the market, but it has taken a shape to aid the burning.'

Ingredient in orange peels
On what aroused their interest in the project, Fatiha said: 'According to the World Health Organisation, malaria is the number one killer disease in tropical Africa. It affects over 5.6 million people annually. Malaria is not a respecter of age, which means that it can affect anybody, anytime. Malaria is becoming difficult to control because mosquitoes are becoming resistant to conventional insecticides often used by many families.

The mosquito parasites are also becoming resistant to malaria drugs. So, you can see that it is a general problem. So, we thought of what we could produce to help people in rural areas. We thought of a product that would be affordable and without any side effect to people's health. That is how we came up with orange pills because in the olden days, people in the village burn orange pills as repellent against mosquitoes', she said.

Fatiha, from Oyo State, said an active ingredient in orange peels, known as limonene, could be used as strong repellent for insects, especially mosquitoes. 'You know that when you are peeling an orange, there is something like vapour that causes discomfort in your eyes. That is the limonene. What we did was to soak the orange peels to enable us extract the citric oil it contains. The citric oil floats on top of the water when these orange peels are soaked for some days. Then, we removed the orange peels and separated the oily substance from the water. From our research, limonene has no side effect on the human body.'

While elaborating on the choice of biological material instead of chemical substance, Sukurat, from Kwara State, said their research revealed that biological materials were safer than other chemical materials. While other chemical substances could have harsh effects on the body system, biological materials are purely natural and devoid of such risks. 'Insecticide produced from orange peels has no other chemical content except substances extracted from the peels. Long exposure to the substance from orange peels does not constitute any risk or trigger negative side-effects on the body', she lectured.

To prove their case, Fatiha said they also had a control experiment where they compared insecticide produced from orange peels with other brands in the market. 'When you spray a room with these brands of insecticides in the market, it tends to choke your breath, which could cause serious discomfort. So, when these substances are used, the person must leave the room for sometimes, to reduce the harsh effect. But in our own product, you can stay because it has the sweet-smelling scent of an orange. You can stay in the room after spraying it. While it deals harshly on the insects, it does no harm to the person in the room,' she said.

Beaming winsome smiles as female marketers are won't to do, Yetunde, who hails from Lagos State, explained that the cost advantage of the new product, with the unit price of N250 to N300, makes it the first choice among other competing brands. 'Because the orange peels are highly effective, you discover that less quantity of the product is used, which makes it last much longer than other products in the market. Also, mosquitoes are becoming resistant to some insecticides due to constant use. These products, when used, only weaken the insects, without actually killing them. But, insecticides produced from orange peels are relatively new to the body system of these insects. The toxic effect on these insects is much higher than other common products', she explained.

Other uses of orange peels
The peels can also be used to produce hand wash, chocolate candies, stain remover, food seasoning/preservative, air freshener and herbal beverages, they revealed to Education Review. They can be used, as well, to separate glued parts or remove paint from wood just by a simple process of crushing and extracting the oils and applying to the glued part. Continued

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