Willowbrook named as State Winner in 2019-20 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest

On Jan. 14, Leah Hope with ABC7 stopped by Willowbrook to cover this amazing accomplishment. Click the video above to watch the broadcast! Read the ABC7 article at https://tinyurl.com/vj7ydta!

Willowbrook math/Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher Josh Zwart’s Project Lead The Way (PLTW) - Principles of Engineering class (pictured above) has been named as a State Winner in the 2019-20 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest.

According to https://www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow, “… this nationwide contest is designed to boost interest and proficiency in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), and challenges public school teachers and students in grades 6-12 to show how STEM can be applied to help improve their local community.” As a State Winner, Willowbrook will receive $15,000 in technology and classroom materials. The students also will bring their project vision to life by creating a three-minute demonstration video to compete for a chance to increase the prize amount to $50,000 and become a National Finalist.

The competition involved completing an application and an Activity Plan. The 27 Willowbrook students in the class focused their project on vaping and used the PLTW Engineering Design Process to help solve this problem. They brainstormed potential STEAM-based solutions such as building devices similar to smoke detectors to be installed in school bathrooms that would detect and then beep if students were vaping, as well as implementing a campaign to combat misconceptions about vaping that would be promoted within the school and community.

Students also created a Google Form survey to collect anonymous vaping data and conducted online research to gather vaping statistics and to determine the impact of vaping on the human body. In the future, the class looks to share its findings, campaign materials and vaping detectors with local elementary and middle schools and possibly host events to share the information with parents/guardians and adults in the community.

For more information about the contest, go to https://www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow.