Southcrest Christian School

The 2024-2025 Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams were selected by a panel of esteemed judges after several months of researching problems within their community that could be addressed with a technological solution. Teams will continue to learn more about the problems they selected in the first half of the grant year. Technological solutions will be prototyped, tested, and modified in the second half of the grant year. The technological solutions—inventions—will be showcased at MIT during EurekaFest, June 9-11, 2025. Team progress can be followed through Inside InvenTeams, a monthly newsletter.

Problem Statement:

The South Plains region in the U.S. faces significant challenges due to drought and heavy reliance on irrigation. The Ogallala Aquifer, the largest in the United States, is vital to our region's economy, with about 95% of its groundwater used for irrigated agriculture in Texas. However, its groundwater withdrawals have consistently exceeded recharge rates, leading to water level declines of 44 feet in the Texas Panhandle area over the past 60 years. One potential solution is to utilize the Dockum Aquifer, which holds an estimated 180 million acre-feet of brackish water; but, due to high salinity levels, this water must be treated before it can be safely used for agriculture. Our primary goal will be to develop a system that manages the pollutants in the Dockum Aquifer and convert them into valuable fertilizers while extracting salts from the brackish water to make it usable for irrigation. Our team aims for this system to relieve usage pressure on the Ogallala Aquifer and enhance sustainable agricultural practices.