THANE: Three girls from class IX of Dr Bedekar Vidya Mandir in Thane have discovered and developed a nutritious snack as a cure to anemia , which is posing to be a bigger challenge among growing children.With observation, guided research the trio, Pradnya More, Sejal Rangale and Vedant Mangrule, have developed a unique energy packed snack that contains an alga called spirulina to defeat anemia among schoolchildren.The 14-year-olds' experiment to end the deficiency caused due to poor intake of iron in regular diet has not just won appreciation, but is now a comprehensive project for the National Children's Science Congress (NCSC) where the girls will exhibit their research findings and explain how they created the snack and extracted the powder from spirulina."During one of the brain storming sessions I felt unusually tired and my joints were hurting. My science teacher gave a perfect diagnosis stating that it was because of iron deficiency. I went home and researched about anemia and its causes. In our next meeting, I suggested why not take up this topic and come up with a solution. Our teacher then told us about spirulina and its benefits to restore iron contents in body,'' said More.The cure to this ailment lies in the intake of iron and vitamin supplements, found the children. They soon started their research in that direction.Another team member, Sejal Rangale, a Wagle-Estate resident, said, "We paid a visit to the research laboratory at Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) wherein we actually performed the entire procedure of converting the alga into a powder-like form. In a petri dish, we first observed the alga, which is like that of seaweed. Then, we flattened it out into a paste after which it was passed through a drying vessel and crushed into a powder with the help of a mixer."The next step in the experiment involved preparing a chocolate-coated spirulina bar. "We added the spirulina powder to milk compound and dark compound slabs of chocolate. The procedure is the same as that of making chocolates except that you add only spirulina, said Ujwala Dhotre, mentor.The trio screened 51 students for an haemoglobin test. The results showed that 90.2 per cent students of class V and IX were anemic. In the second stage, 10 students were selected out of which five were given dates to eat on a regular basis and the remaining spirulina chocolates."After 30 days, it was seen that the haemoglobin levels in the children who had the spirulina chocolates increased by one level, whereas the ones who were given dates remained stable," added More.

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