Santa Cruz teens will present ‘fog drip’ research to some of the world’s top scientists in D.C.

For Talia and Kaia Gurdak, there was rarely a dry moment growing up with water scientists as parents.

As little kids, they often joined their mother as she presented at one of the largest earth and space science conferences. More intrigued by an interactive display of dazzling gems and earrings than the groundbreaking science plastered around them, the girls did not think much of the conference’s significance at the time. 

But now, the Santa Cruz high schoolers will join over 25,000 scientists in presenting their research project at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington, D.C., this week.

After three years of collecting water droplets from fog in their yard to investigate whether it is a sustainable water resource, the girls will present their findings as an online poster presentation for AGU’s education section. 

“This isn’t just some random conference,” said AGU education section planning committee member Michelle Nichols, who selected the Gurdak sisters’ project out of more than 700 submissions. “It’s the largest gathering of scientists on the planet.” 

The AGU annual meeting is a prestigious event for any researcher, let alone high school students. In a one-week flurry, researchers and attendees from more than 100 countries gather to hear about some of the newest information emerging from the earth sciences.

The conference covers topics about the earth in all its forms: water, air, land and atmosphere. Though the girls could have entered an abstract on anything from the earth’s core to the edge of the universe, they focused on sustainable water solutions, following the scientific path of their parents. 

While the Gurdaks enjoyed outdoorsy activities like camping and hiking as a family, the girls’ parents — mom Leora and dad Jason — shared their geology and hydrology knowledge through fun facts about rocks and water. 

“I think when you’re out and about outside, you just kind of show them the world and explain things,” Jason Gurdak said. “Kaia and I were in the car a lot going to soccer, so I’d explain what I do for work, like why there are reservoirs and what a reservoir is used for.” 

Eager to make a difference, Talia, 17, a senior at Santa Cruz High School, and Kaia, 15, a sophomore at Pacific Collegiate School, began wading through a sea of creative water-saving solutions happening around the world. Inspired by the quest to find alternative water sources in fog-dense places like Chile and Peru, they decided to take advantage of Santa Cruz’s own hazy haven. 

“In Santa Cruz and coastal California we had a lot of fog, especially in the summers,” Talia said. “We have this whole ecosystem in coastal California, but especially in Santa Cruz, where fog is important. We knew that fog is an important water supply, because we have redwoods and banana slugs.”

Growing up in California, Talia and Kaia were well aware of the water scarcity that comes along with prolonged droughts. They hoped fog, an abundant resource in Santa Cruz, could be a viable source of water for small household uses, such as gardening.

Like many Santa Cruz natives, the girls were accustomed to seeing water droplets from fog, called fog drip, form on tree branches. But to understand if they could collect enough water droplets over time, Talia and Kaia built a 6.5-foot-by-6.5-foot fog collector out of gridded mesh with the help of their dad. 

“I was the grunt,” Jason said. Since both parents have spent time working in academia, they enjoyed being able to teach their children through the experiment. “It’s fun working with your kids,” he added.

The sisters propped up their hand-made apparatus in their front yard. After fog settled on the mesh, the droplets fell into a metal trough and were later collected through a plastic tube. While some might grumble about a socked-in day in the middle of the summer, “Fogust” is considered an exciting time for the Gurdak family. 

“When there’s a lot of fog drip, it [was] a big deal,” Talia said, recalling times they would all check on their experiment in the morning. The young scientists would often exclaim to each other: “Oh my God there’s a lot fog drip today! Take a picture!”

These jubilant mornings came more frequently this past summer when the Grudak sisters switched to using a fog collector that was twice as large as their original design. On 11 foggy days, they collected 500 milliliters of water, enough to fill a typical water bottle. The maximum amount of water they collected in a single day this summer was seven times higher than in previous years. 

By doubling the size of the fog collector, “we got more than double the amount of water,” Kaia said. “That’s definitely a lot more water that can help with things like gardening.”

Drawing conclusions from their experiment, the sisters found that fog drip will likely be a viable small-scale solution for people looking for more sustainable water practices, even if it’s unlikely to fully replace the 44 gallons of water per day used by the average city of Santa Cruz resident. 

“It’s not going to be sufficient for large-scale use, but it’s a little bit of water that we didn’t have before,” Talia said. To increase the amount of water they collect in future studies, they hope to add a metal sheet behind the mesh to prevent water from going through the open spaces, Kaia said. 

The students compiled their findings into a scientific report complete with an abstract, graphs and comparative data. Under the tutelage of their parents, Talia and Kaia produced work worthy of AGU’s high standards. 

AGU section planning committee member Nichols, who sifts through hundreds of projects submitted to the organization each year, said she doesn’t let age play a role in her evaluation of which ones get chosen to present at the conference. 

“I didn’t even know they were high school students,” Nichols said. “I didn’t pay attention to that. That tells you something about the quality of the presentation in the abstract description.” 

AGU has a students-only session during the annual meeting as part of a program called Bright Stars that supports aspiring scientists in middle school and high school. But Talia and Kaia took a path less traveled, submitting to the general education sessions open to any researchers. 

Nichols suspects that out of the thousands of abstracts being presented, only a few hundred high school students are presenting in this category. 

“The fact that students are involved in this tells you that we’ve got some kids on this planet who are looking in the right direction,” Nichols said. “They’re looking for scientific ways to solve problems. These students have their heads on straight, they really do, and that gives me hope for the future.” 

This isn’t the first time Talia and Kaia have dipped a toe into sustainable water research. As a part of an international fellowship program called Eco Circle International (ECI), Talia learns about global water and climate issues and how to create solutions to solve them. As a part of one of her ECI projects, Talia developed a website called Students for Sustainable Water, which connects students around the world working on improving water resources. 

“It’s important for students to empower each other,” Talia said. “It’s a global issue, so having a global community is a pretty powerful thing. If we can all come together and share solutions then maybe we can work on something bigger and have hope to solve something.” 

Talia and Kaia presented both their website and their second year of findings at AGU’s in-person meeting last year. Surrounded by thousands of other presenters and knowledge-hungry journalists and professors, they had no shortage of interested attendees inquiring about their work. 

“It was super cool,” Talia said. “We were standing next to guys who had done studies about NASA and stuff.” 

Even though Talia is used to public speaking as a tour guide at the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, she is still adjusting to having seasoned professionals ask her questions about their work. “It’s a little intimidating,” her younger sister admitted. 

Though the girls describe themselves as “polar opposites,” they are close and enjoy working together. “Talia is more interested in the sort of decision-making side of the story,” their dad said. “And I think Kaia is more interested in the science side of things. They both really have their own talents.”

The sisters are looking forward to continuing to research global water sustainability and hope to keep presenting at AGU for years to come. 

“It’s our generation who’s going to have to live through all the repercussions of climate change,” Talia said. “So, it’s super important that we do something and have hope.”

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