METAIRIE, La (WGNO)–Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies in Metairie recently competed and won a STEM research competition, where they became the Louisiana state winners for the Samsung Solve For Tomorrow competition.
Since 2010, Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow has been a competition, where middle and high school students from around the country, form teams to compete in science technology engineering and math research projects.
Ann Woo is the Senior Director of Samsung’s Senior Citizenship and says, “you definitely see yourselves in these students. It gives me pride to see this shift happening in this younger generation today.”
Many of the school teams around the country used the competition to try and find timely solutions for the world’s current dilemmas. The students at Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies came up with a project that aims to help with coastal flooding.
Radhika Alapure is an 8th grader who worked on the project and says, “some of the ideas our class came up with, was to plant trees, where the roots would help hold the ground and a seawall to help stop the water from washing away the land. The idea was a curved seawall, where the water would hit the seawall and come back into the ocean. We found that refined glass powder sand, helps strengthen the concrete. We did experiments with that, to see what percentage would work the best.”
Audriana Li is another one of the 8th graders and says, “this is where our stem cell plants are growing. When they are fully developed, they are going into the Bonnet Carre Spillway and we will plant them there.”
Out of thousands of team research projects, 300 state finalists were chosen. Out of 300, 50 state winners are chosen. Out of 50 state winners, 10 national finalists are chosen and then three national winners are chosen.
The three winning teams win, $100,000 in technology and supplies for their schools. The whole competition is alike to the project of the Haynes Academy students, as they grow trees for a solution. Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow is about growing and cultivating the next generation of students, who will find the solutions of tomorrow.
“This is it! These are the kids. These are the ones who are going to make the difference, make the changes and come up with the solution,” says Leah Weaver, the teacher.
Fore more information about the Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow, click here.
