{"id":7625,"date":"2016-04-19T18:17:38","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T22:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/?p=7625"},"modified":"2019-06-18T23:21:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T03:21:05","slug":"pov-can-national-stem-contest-change-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/pov-can-national-stem-contest-change-world\/","title":{"rendered":"[PoV] Can A National STEM Contest Change the World?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This seems like a pretty dramatic title, but the truthful answer to this question is: Yes, yes it can.<\/em><\/p>\n

My name is James Fleming, and I am a mathematics teacher at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, located in Erie, Pennsylvania. Last year, I received an email announcing the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest<\/a>. Although it had run for a few years, I had never heard of it before. I asked the teacher of the Principle of Engineering class, Peter Reed, if we could collaborate and offer his class a chance to enter the contest with a project based on vertical farming.<\/p>\n

The Solve for Tomorrow Contest encourages students to use science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by asking the question: How can you use STEM to make a difference in your community?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Prototypes<\/a>

Prototypes of the vertical gardens project that James Fleming and his students developed for the 2014-2015 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest that led them to be named one of the five National Winners and receive more than $120,000 worth of technology for their school.<\/p><\/div>\n

Our idea was to develop vertical gardens with the hope of giving students from our district and people from the community a chance to grow some of their own food in an urban environment. The project, we thought, was a good one for students to go through an entire process from research to design, to modeling and prototyping, to making presentations and doing complete cost analysis. We had no thoughts that this project was going to have a chance of winning the contest. Boy, were we in for a shock.<\/p>\n

In fact, we were in for a series of shocks.<\/p>\n

After our project was judged good enough to be a national finalist, our school, district and community got behind us and we ended up winning the contest as the community choice winner<\/a>. What did that mean?<\/p>\n

Well, our school won more than $125,000 worth of Samsung technology. This is a huge amount of money, but it is even greater because our district is one of the poorest in the state of Pennsylvania. In the last four years, our superintendent has had to cut spending, jobs and programs – all while trying to ensure we are giving our students the best education we possibly can. So this windfall of technology is amazing. In fact, you could say that the influx of technology was a change to our world.<\/p>\n

The bigger shock to me, which I am embarrassed to say, was how invested the students became in the project. They knew that they had a chance to really make a difference in people\u2019s lives. They all know kids or families who struggle with getting food on the table. They also know the impact of supporting yourself, even just a little, can do to one\u2019s self esteem.<\/p>\n

\"Prototypes<\/a>

Prototypes of the vertical gardens project that James Fleming and his students developed for the 2014-2015 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest that led them to be named one of the five National Winners and receive more than $120,000 worth of technology for their school.<\/p><\/div>\n

These are the situations you hope for as a teacher: you give a student a project or idea, tell them to do what they can, then they do amazing things. And then they change the world. And the world changes them.<\/p>\n

One of my students, Madi Heeter, said she didn\u2019t realize how engineering could make a difference in people\u2019s lives, how it could be a helping profession. As a high school junior when the project started, she wanted to be an oncologist. Now as a senior, after taking part in the project, she wants to be a bio-mechanical engineer. I truly think she will change the world, or at least change someone\u2019s life. And isn\u2019t that the same thing?<\/p>\n

Another student, Emma Frost, wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and still does, but how she looks at engineering has changed. And there was Julie who came to my classroom every day, telling me with passion how she was tweaking other people\u2019s prototypes to make them better.<\/p>\n

\"Teacher<\/a>

Teacher James Fleming with students Emma Frost and Madi Heeter from Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy in Erie, Pa., on the set of The Weather Channel to talk about their vertical gardens project.<\/p><\/div>\n

We had one successful prototype last year. So this year, the engineering class is taking the best from the previous projects to build it for zero cost. This project changed my students\u2019 lives, and they will in turn change the lives of others. And during the process of the competition, I met so many great kids who were competing with mine in at the National Finalist event in New York City<\/a>, and then at the National Winners event in Washington, D.C., who were also passionate about their projects.<\/p>\n

There was Bela<\/a> from Nevada who was working on helping disabled students at her school. There was Cedric from Washington who was turning cardboard into mulch for growing mushrooms. Amazing kids, with passion and ideas. And there are lots of kids I didn\u2019t get to meet who were also inspired to do great things. And what does this contest do for them?<\/p>\n

Well, of course, it gives the winner technology, but it does so much more than that. It gives these students, even the ones who don\u2019t win, validation that their ideas and work is worthy of being paid attention to. And that too, if you will excuse the clich\u00e9, will change the world. I truly believe that.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/Xr0eMNRyUz4<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This seems like a pretty dramatic title, but the truthful answer to this question is: Yes, yes it can. My name is James Fleming, and I am a mathematics teacher at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, located in Erie, Pennsylvania. Last year, I received an email announcing the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest. Although it had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":7707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29719,17563],"tags":[730,35],"blue-badge":[],"class_list":["post-7625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","category-corporate-education","tag-solve-for-tomorrow-sft","tag-stem"],"acf":{"turn_off_retargeting":false},"fimg_mobile_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/14190712\/20151028_094036.jpeg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/14190712\/20151028_094036.jpeg","primary_category":{"term_id":29719,"name":"Corporate","slug":"corporate","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":29719,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1026,"filter":"raw","term_link":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/category\/corporate\/","term_path":"corporate"},"badge":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7625"},{"taxonomy":"blue-badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blue-badge?post=7625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}