CLEANUP—Students from Viewpoint School and Daniel Pearl Magnet High School assemble WAPIs (water pasteurization indicators) on the Viewpoint campus in Calabasas. WAPIs are used to help clean the water in communities around the world. Viewpoint School and the Calabasas Rotary Club hosted the annual WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator) assembly workshop on the school campus April 21.

A WAPI is a four-inch plastic tube containing wax particles that melt when submerged into cooking water that has reached 65 degree Celsius/149 degree Fahrenheit, a temperature that eliminates microbes carrying e. coli, rotaviruses, giardia, and hepatitis C virus.

These devices will be used to bring safe water to communities all over the world.

“Eighty percent of illness in the developing world is due to contaminated water,” said Viewpoint science teacher Hilary Hunt. “The WAPI works as a simple thermometer that indicates when water has reached pasteurization temperature and is safe to drink. Since water pasteurizes at temperatures well below the boiling point of water, WAPIs save time when solar pasteurizing, and save fuel when using traditional fuels.”

Several years ago, Walt and Diane Parrish of the Fresno Rotary Club initiated a campaign to produce WAPIs through community workshops throughout the country and abroad. Since then, high school volunteers and Rotarians have made thousands of WAPIs that have been distributed to communities in rural areas of Africa, Iraq, and the Americas, primarily for use with solar cookers.

“Viewpoint was thrilled to have our students in the Upper School join with students from Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in an effort that will have an impact on villages in the developing world,” said Kristina Duarte, Viewpoint’s director of community service. “This project of the International Rotary is such a simple yet effective way to provide safe water to communities in need.”

Viewpoint School in Calabasas is a nondenominational, coeducational school of 1,200 students in K-12.