The project
La Vida Oculta del Agua took as its subject something most people never see: the organisms living in ordinary fresh water. The Google Science Fair's announcement describes the team as examining microscopic life in fresh water, documenting what lives inside a droplet and the environmental impacts on it.
It is a classical piece of natural-history science done with modern tools, and it belongs to a different tradition from the engineering projects that dominate science fairs. The sources record the subject and the result rather than the methods, so nothing is claimed here about how the sampling or imaging was carried out.
A team prize, not an individual one
The 15 to 16 category was won by three students together: Hervias Rodriguez, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual. Group entries were normal at the Google Science Fair, and several of the 2012 finalists were pairs.
The third teammate's surname appears as Pascual in the winners announcement and as Pascua in the earlier finalists post. It is a discrepancy in the competition's own blog rather than two different people, and it is noted here rather than quietly corrected.
How the competition worked
The Google Science Fair narrowed a global online entry to fifteen finalists across three age groups, who were invited to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, to present to an international panel of judges. The final was held on 23 July 2012.
The Spanish team's category also held Rohit Fenn of India, Sabera Talukder, Catherine Wong, and Kimberley and Phillip Yu of the United States. The grand prize that year went to Brittany Wenger of the United States for a neural network service supporting breast cancer diagnosis, and the 13 to 14 category to Jonah Kohn for a tactile sound device.
Why the project stands out
Water quality is usually presented through chemistry: parts per million, contaminant thresholds, treatment stages. A project that instead documents the living community inside a droplet turns an abstraction into something observable.
Prizes at the 2012 fair were supplied by Google and its partners CERN, LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American, a list that reflects the range of the competition. A study of freshwater microorganisms sat in the same final as a cloud-computing cancer diagnostic and a device for people with hearing loss.
What is documented - and what is not
Everything above comes from two posts on the Google Science Fair's own blog. They give the project title and description, the category, the teammates, the venue and the date.
They do not give a birth year, a school, a home city, a photograph or a quotation, and no further reporting on Hervias Rodriguez appears in the sources used here. What became of the project, and what the three students did next, is undocumented in these sources and is therefore left blank.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Won the 15-16 category of the 2012 Google Science Fair with Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual (Google Science Fair blog)
- The project, La Vida Oculta del Agua, examined microscopic organisms in fresh water
- The final was judged at Google's Mountain View headquarters on 23 July 2012
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No published birth year, school or home city
- No description of the team's methods or equipment
- No documented information about any of the three students after 2012
Questions people ask about Iván Hervías Rodríguez
What is Ivan Hervias Rodriguez known for?
Winning the 15 to 16 category of the 2012 Google Science Fair, with Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual, for La Vida Oculta del Agua.
What was the project about?
Microscopic organisms in fresh water. The team documented the life inside water droplets and the effects of the surrounding environment.
Did he win alone?
No. The category prize was won by a team of three.
How old is Ivan Hervias Rodriguez?
No source used here gives a birth year. He competed in the 15 to 16 category in 2012.
Why is the third teammate's name spelled two ways?
The competition's winners post gives Sergio Pascual and the earlier finalists post gives Sergio Pascua. Both refer to the same teammate.
Who won the grand prize in 2012?
Brittany Wenger of the United States, for a cloud-based neural network to support breast cancer diagnosis.
Is Ivan Hervias Rodriguez on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on him was found.
Where is he now?
No information after July 2012 appears in the sources used here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Iván’s story?
What was La Vida Oculta del Agua about?
How many students made up the winning team?
Which category did they win?
Sources
- The winners of the 2012 Google Science Fair — Google Science Fair blog, 2012-07-23
- 15 Google Science Fair Finalists and the Science in Action winners are off to Mountain View — Google Science Fair blog, 2012-06-06
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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