Garrett Yazie

 

Necessity Is The Mother of Invention

 

Garret Yazzie was a thirteen-year-old boy who lived in Arizona with his family; Garret’s family was part of the Navajo tribe. More than fifty percent of the families that lived in Garret’s town lived below the poverty line and Garret’s family was part of them. Garrets family lived in a beat down trailer that’s only source of heat was a coal-burning stove. The coal-burning stove was expensive to run and it gave Garrets sister asthma attacks. When Garret heard about a science fair that took place in Chandler, Arizona Garret was the only one in his class to sign up for it because he wanted to go sight seeing because the only place he has been other than his town is a Wal-Mart tat was two hours away from his village. So Garret thought about what he wanted to do for the science fair and he had an idea. He wanted to find a way to heat his house without using coal. Garret noticed that the town that he was living in had a lot of sunlight, and Garret thought about a way to harvest the sun. Garret uses a radiator from a 1967 Pontiac, 69 soda cans, a sheet of plexiglass, plywood, and a hose. Out of these materials he built a solar powered water heater. Garret took his contraption to the science fair and he won first place. After the science fair Garret decided to make an even bigger project, he decided to make a solar powered device that could heat water and air. The solar heater that Garret made to heat water and air won garret first place at a science fair in Phoenix and heated his house. Garrets sister stooped having asthma attacks and Garret’s family finally slept in a warm house. After the science fair in Phoenix Garret signed up for the Discovery Channel Young Science Challenge. Every year more than seventy-five thousand people applied to the Discovery Channel Young Science Challenge hoping to be one of the top forty. Garret made it into the top forty at the DCYSC. After the DCYSC, Garret went to Washington DC for another science fair. Garret got seventh place in Washington but he also met Michael and Kathleen Pierz. After hearing Garrets amazing story Michael and Kathleen Pierz decided to let Garret live with them while he attended a private school in Orchard Lake. Then Garrets story reaches, and one day the host of Extreme Makeovers: House Edition meets the Yazzie family. The Yazzie’s trailer was torn down and replaced with a house that ran off of wind and water. The house was two traditional hexagonal Navajo Hogan’s connected by a shared entry. In 2006 Garret qualified for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Arizona State University created a scholarship offering financial aid to Native Americans, called the Garret Yazzie Rising Star Scholarship Fund.