Maui students' research on plastic degradation to reach new heights with NASA (2024)

Four Maui High students, with guidance from University of Hawaiʻi professors, have created an experiment to measure how plastic degrades under ultraviolet light.

It was selected by the Cubes in Space program — a competitive, international opportunity for students to send their experiments on a high-altitude NASA balloon flight.

“Our experiment really just tries to seek how ultraviolet radiation can degrade plastic in a specific, like controlled environment, and see how much of new UV will affect degradation,” said Joshua Mori, a rising senior at Maui High.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab/Michael Lentz

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The students’ experiment will go about 23 miles above the Earth’s surface aboard the scientific balloon in late August or September.

“Plastics are a major thing that we're seeing right now, and there's so much plastic in our environment, and as it degrades, it creates so much waste,” explained Holden Suzuki, another rising senior.

The carefully designed and highly researched experiments must each fit into a tiny 4 by 4 by 4-centimeter cube.

UH Professor of Mathematics Monique Chyba is one of the professors working with the Maui students.

“It's an international competition, and they got selected based on the experiment that they suggested,” she said. “And it might sound deceptive because it's a little cube, but it's actually extremely challenging to come up with a meaningful experiment in such a tiny space.”

Maui High student Wilson Chau explained his 3D diagrams for the project.

“So, from the exterior, we have our cube dimensions,” he said, manipulating the computer imaging showing the project’s intricate dimensions. “So this was the cube that needed to be researched in, and then doing a lot of math to find out what size fits the best. And then each cube has four different borosilicate vials.”

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The students selected vials made of borosilicate — a type of glass that isn’t affected by UV radiation — instead of typical plastic ones so the vial material wouldn’t skew the results of the experiment.

Each vial will contain low-density polyethylene plastic to be tested.

“It's also an experiment that tests how well our environment can handle UV radiation,” Holden explained.

“Because, as you might have heard, the ozone layer is getting a little bit weaker, and some areas of it are actually letting more UV in, right? So as that UV gets stronger and stronger, we're going to notice more plastic degradation. So our goal is to see how much faster does this plastic degrade and affect the environment given these kind of weakened ozone layer conditions," he continued.

The students chose the topic out of a desire to contribute solutions to their community’s challenges.

“It really has a lot of impact with what we went through with the Lahaina fires, and especially with the climate crisis the world is in currently,” Joshua said. “And I wish to contribute a little bit of research into this endeavor.”

After its flight, the experiment will be returned to the students for analysis in the lab.

“We're also dealing with spectroscopy, which is the measure of stuff using light,” Holden said. “So the main way that we're like actually measuring the amount of methane that we have is we're basically shooting light through it and seeing the emission and absorption lines to see how much methane and carbon there are, to see how much it off-gasses.”

In the wake of last year’s Maui fires, in which climate change and drought were named as contributing factors, the students hope their research will make a difference.

UH

“Hopefully, with the knowledge that we have now about climate change and about the effects of it, we can better prepare for situations like this,” Holden said. “You can better prepare to have fireproof buildings, or we can even just make Hawaiʻi's climate a little bit better because obviously a lot of people can experience the changes in climate. We've seen lower rainfall for a while now. We've seen crazy high temperatures.”

Holden said their research could help guide government policy as well as consumer decisions.

“It lets us know how much plastic degrades and how quickly it degrades,” he explained. “So it can help influence your decisions when it comes to buying things and making choices when you're going to the market about what kinds of plastics you'd like to use, and thinking about how quickly do these things degrade, and what kinds of precautions we have to take about them.”

UH

While tackling climate change can feel daunting, Joshua is optimistic.

“I really wish that Hawaiʻi residents know that there is hope regarding this climate change issue ... ” he said. “There's a lot of very smart people working on this issue. And I feel excited about what's going to happen in the near future.”

For Professor Chyba, the students represent hope.

“I think it's important for the community to be involved actively, through the youth, through research projects, and to see, as Joshua said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And I think those youth are the light that we're looking for,” she said.

The work was funded through a National Science Foundation grant.