School librarian will bring equipment to jungle classrooms

(AP) — Dana Rensi was in the Peruvian Amazon city of Iquitos working her way through a Fulbright teacher exchange program when she decided to go a little deeper into the jungle, so she hopped into small canoe-type boat known as a Pequepeque — named after the sputtering sounds its engine makes — and embarked on a tour she can still describe in great detail 12 years after the experience.

Secondary schools there are rare, but inside the one she visited, traced in chalk, was the familiar elliptical ripples and scattered orbs of our solar system.

Inspired by what she witnessed in the jungle during the 2005-06 school year and emboldened by technological advances which have rendered former barriers to her vision mere hurdles, Rensi will head back to the jungle in July with equipment that will give hundreds and possibly thousands of school-aged children who have no access to electricity, let alone the internet, the ability to tap into solar digital libraries loaded with educational content.

Known as RACHELs, or Remote Access Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, the digital libraries Rensi will take, once set up, will shoot out wireless signals which can be picked up by any laptop or mobile device with standard Wi-Fi capability.

Rensi has partnered with Project Amazonas, a not-for-profit non-governmental organization that specializes in medical care, conservation, education, research and sustainable community development.

By tweaking a popular children's toy, Stanford bioengineers have developed a human-powered, string-operated centrifuge that can be used to detect diseases such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.

The distribution of her various goods represents only the final leg of what is a jam-packed itinerary for Rensi, who will begin her trek by flying to Mexico City, where she will meet with Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, a senator from Guanajuato and also the president of the education commissions and the secretary of the science and technology commission.

[...] she'll shove off to the Amazon.