Science teacher Richard Dudley of Coventry Local Schools’ Coventry High School is the $20,000 Ohio winner of the 2015-16 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. Dudley and his STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) elective students designed an innovative STEM project that they are bringing to life through a video and website. Contest winners were announced for each state.
Dudley and his students will study human impact on a water source on school property and nearby Portage Lakes to design and implement best water management practices. Students will measure water quality characteristics throughout the lakes to understand and discover critical regional and seasonal changes that result from the abundance of nutrients. Their solution to the problem will involve designing and deploying artificial floating wetlands in an attempt to remove excess nitrogen and phosphorous in the lakes. Their designs, how to build them, water quality data and project findings, as well as other effective water management strategies, will be shared with the community through a project website and community outreach events.
Dudley’s participation in Earth Systems Science, a Kent State University program on technology-supported Earth and environmental science inquiry instruction, introduced him to the geospatial tools and techniques that helped him to develop the project. GPS units and a GPS-enabled video camera will be used to collect data on potential areas of concern on land. These technologies were provided to Dudley as part of his Earth Systems Science participation. Data will be analyzed in Google Earth.
Kent State assistant professors Bridget Mulvey and Jacqueline Curtis developed the Earth Systems Science program. It was financed by $100,252 in federal funds, with 86.9 percent funded by the Improving Teacher Quality Program administered by the Ohio Board of Regents (now known as the Ohio Department of Higher Education). The second year of the program is currently underway with a funded third year to begin in July 2016. Mulvey supported Dudley’s grant writing efforts, and both Mulvey and Curtis are working with Dudley’s class for the STEM project.
To see a list of winners of the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest, visit www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow/finalists.
For more information about the Coventry High School’s STEM project, visit www.plx-warf.org and its Facebook page.
For more information about Kent State’s Earth Systems Science, visit www.kent.edu/ghhlab/earth-systems-science.
