Question

After reading “Keeping the Lions Away” and “Remya Cleans Up,” write a five-paragraph narrative that connects the two texts. Your narrative should show how innovation, perseverance, and problem-solving can change lives. Use narrative techniques such as setting, character, plot, dialogue, pacing, and sensory details.

Choose one narrative approach:

Imagine that Richard Turere and Remya Jose meet at a youth innovation conference. Tell the story from one point of view as they work together to solve a new problem.

Write as yourself: a middle school student inspired by both articles. Tell the story of how reading about Richard and Remya leads you to invent something for your community.

Tell the story from the perspective of a reporter following Richard and Remya through a day of collaboration, using scenes and dialogue to reveal their ideas and challenges.

Use your imagination to come up with a situation in which Richard and Remya interact to make a change in your area or community.

Answer 1

The summer I read “Keeping the Lions Away” and “Remya Cleans Up,” I sat cross-legged on the library carpet with the pages folded back and the sun hot on my shoulders. Richard’s story stayed in my head—the way a boy used simple flashing lights to keep lions from eating his family’s cows—and Remya’s story stayed with me too, how she had built something to clean up trash and make her neighborhood safer. In my town the river smelled like old soda and weeds after every rain, and trash blocked the culverts so the street behind my house flooded. I could hear the clink of bottles and the soft, hungry scratching of raccoons at our alley cans at night. Reading those two articles made me stop thinking “someone should do something” and start asking, “what if I did something?”

I sketched ideas on the back of my math homework. Richard had used motion and light to change animal behavior without hurting them; Remya had made a machine that could actually pick up garbage. What if I combined both ideas? I imagined a small solar-powered boat that skimmed the surface for plastic and glass, and a blinking light on top to keep curious animals and late-night vandals away from the piles of trash it collected. I showed my sketch to Ms. Alvarez in science class. “Simple,” she said, tapping the drawing. “Start with what you can find.” “I will,” I told her, my cheeks warm with a plan forming like a pulley in my head.

Making the first prototype was mostly messy and loud. I scavenged a broken garden pump, an old USB solar charger, and a plastic laundry basket from the thrift shop. I wired the little motor with clumsy hands and hot solder dripped on the kitchen counter. The first test was a disaster: the basket flipped, the motor coughed, and the blinking light stayed stubbornly dark. My little brother laughed until he cried, and Mom said, “Or you could just stop.” Remya and Richard’s stories kept running through my head—Richard’s nights fixing his lights even when he was tired, Remya testing and testing until something worked. So I tried again, sealing seams with more glue, attaching a float made of foam, swapping the burnt motor for a slower but stronger one. I stayed after school for extra hours and asked Mr. Patel from the hardware store for tips on waterproofing. “Keep at it,” he told me, handing me an old bicycle chain to make a tiny conveyor. “Small things add up.”

The morning we finally launched LightSkim—my little solar boat with a soft amber blink on top—the river smelled fresher, as if the plants noticed us and breathed out. I waded in with the others from the environmental club while the town slept and mist rose off the water like ghost paper. The motor hummed, the net trailed, and the blinking light flashed in an easy rhythm. Leaves, straws, a soda can, and a soggy shopping bag bumped into the net and slid into the basket with a wet clatter. A raccoon on the bank hesitated at the blinking, turned its head, and shambled away. Neighbors who had once ignored the clogged drain walked over with curiosity, then with gratitude when they saw the narrow channel clearing. “You did that?” Mrs. Gomez asked, holding the basket of trash and grinning like it was laundry she’d put out to dry. The river didn’t smell as bad afterward; it felt quieter, as if it had been given room to breathe.

Now LightSkim spends weekends skimming the surface, and a few kids from my class help me mend it when the chain slips or the solar panel needs a wipe. We named the team “Bright Fixers” after the blinking light that started the whole thing. Reading about Richard’s courage to experiment and Remya’s stubborn work taught me that a good idea doesn’t need fancy parts—just someone who won’t stop. Innovation, perseverance, and problem-solving didn’t just make a gadget; they made neighbors notice, kids care, and the river run a little cleaner. If a middle schooler with a thrift-store basket and two stories from faraway places can change the route of a puddle and the sound of midnight trash, I think we’re only starting to see what ideas can do.