~Photos by Claudia Ferro

5th grade students at East Somerville Community School were recently challenged to engineer solutions to problems the main character faced in the novel A Long Walk to Water.

The novel takes place in the African country of South Sudan. The main character, Nya, is a young girl with an important job. She must walk to the pond and carry a heavy bucket of water on her head home to her family.

Every day Nya spends 8 hours a day walking to and from the pond. What’s worse is that the water is very dirty and makes her little sister sick. Her sister has to go to the hospital but is too weak to walk there.

The students became “investors” at the engineering showcase. Students presented their solutions to these problems in hopes that their teachers would be persuaded to invest their play money in their projects.