Three Upper School students worked with the Lower School this spring to create a two-week educational program that served as sixth graders’ final graded science project. Cain Patel ’26, president of the nonprofit organization Science For Survival, along with co-founder Nsidibe Ekpo ’26, and their classmate Shravya Nandigam ’26 worked together to create the “Survive the Island” project, where sixth graders were tasked with creating a 3D model of a microecosystem and showing how they would obtain water, food, heat, and shelter during a hypothetical natural disaster. Additionally, Science For Survival is leading the science curriculum for the Horizons at Woodward program this summer. We spoke with Cain about how the organization was started and what it was like to work with younger students.

 

How did Science for Survival come about? What was the inspiration for forming the nonprofit?

I vividly remember waking up the morning after Hurricane Milton. I was exhausted. I had only gotten around five hours of sleep because my dad woke us up at 1:00 a.m. to evacuate us to the basement. The absence of the wind that tore through the branches of the neighboring forestry and the harsh pattering of the rain made the morning silence eerie and hollow. The quiet after the storm was interrupted by the voice of the Weather Channel anchor, reporting that the hurricane had resulted in damages that totaled around $34.3 billion and 35 fatalities, roughly half that of Hurricane Helene, which had made landfall less than two weeks before. Clearly, these events were not isolated. These natural disasters will continue to bring death and devastation, only as long as we let them. It was in this light that I was inspired to find a way to mitigate this destruction. In the face of such a massive problem, I was clueless as to how I, a junior in high school, could even begin to attack it. However, as I researched ways to make a contribution, I resolved to utilize the most powerful method of reform (and also the cheapest): education. With education, students who learn the significance of natural disasters and how to respond not only learn how to protect themselves, but also their families, and as they grow older, they will pass down their knowledge to their children, and the cycle continues. My classmate Nsidibe and I founded Science for Survival with the mission of raising awareness about natural disaster response and inspiring future generations of scientists to contribute to the fight against natural disasters.

 

Describe the experience of working with Woodward sixth graders. 

Working with the sixth graders was a novel experience. We had never worked with so many students simultaneously, 206 students. It required months for me and Shravya (our activity director) to prepare the educational materials and hone in on the details of the project. The hours we spent on making presentations with all the educational materials became worth it after I saw the students studying our material. More than that, I was thoroughly impressed by the students' creativity. Their response reminded me that we were doing something meaningful and inspired me to continue to pursue our mission.

 

What are your plans for working with Horizons students this summer?

This summer, we are working with Horizons on a four-week science program. The main theme of Horizons this year is the culture of the Caribbean, and the students in each grade are assigned to specific regions. For example, first graders are assigned to Puerto Rico, eighth graders to Trinidad, etc. In this program, we will teach a brief history of natural disasters in their respective regions and how their impacts have shaped technological advancements in architecture and material science. Based on the region, the students will then be challenged to propose their own novel architecture style, nanomaterial, or energy harvesting technique that is resistant to the natural disaster most prevalent to their assigned region. After coming up with their technique, they will present their ideas to a board of teachers, Science for Survival student educators, and their peers in a symposium format.

 

What are your own favorite aspects of science in the Upper School?

My favorite aspect is how diverse the offerings are in the courses Woodward provides. When I discovered my interest in chemistry, it was an extremely easy process to switch into AP chemistry, and taking the course has only continued to fuel my interest in the subject. In fact, it is because of my interest in chemistry that I decided to conduct research, which Woodward gladly facilitated through their Independent Scientific Research program, a course that allows seniors to conduct graduate-level research, working with colleges and universities, and grants opportunities to present that research to an audience. 

 

What are your plans for college and beyond?

My dream schools are Stanford and MIT, and I intend to major in environmental engineering. In college, I plan to continue to lead Science for Survival, so hopefully I can establish a research center to create novel materials or energy harvesting systems that are disaster-impervious. If given the opportunity, I also would love to contribute to the development of nuclear energy as a sustainable energy source through research, and potentially get involved with the more policy-based side of sustainable processes through advocacy.