Newcastle school among top finalists

Alexis Barker
NLJ reporter
 
Newcastle High School is among the nation’s 250 state finalists in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest, “a program that encourages students to solve real-world issues in their community using classroom skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM),” according to a release from Samsung. Four other Wyoming schools were also selected as state finalists. 
The school’s state finalist status means that science instructor Jim Stith, who submitted the proposal for the contest, will be awarded one Samsung tablet for his classroom and have the opportunity to advance to additional stages of the competition, competing for additional prizes and educational opportunity.  
“With $2 million in technology on the line, teachers from the five state finalist schools will submit a lesson plan outlining how students will tackle the local issue using STEM skills to ultimately improve the greater community,” the release states. 
The issue Stith chose for the contest involves slowing the spread of  white-nose syndrome, a disease that is killing bats across the United States and that has spread into Wyoming this year, according to the National Park Service. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
“I chose it because bats are a super important, and sometimes overlooked, part of the ecosystem,” Stith said. “This fungus is spreading and wiping out large portions of the nation’s bat population, and I think this might be a way of doing it.” 
According to Stith’s proposal, the goal of his project is to create an atomizer that will release anti-fungal mist, sanitizing bats affected by the disease. 
“The student-designed device will be deployed at the mouths of caves where bats roost. Bats entering the cave will be sanitized with the anti-fungal spray and will keep from infecting other bats,” Stith’s proposal says. “The students in this project plan to develop and prototype such a device as part of the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition.” 
Stith explained that he and his students hope this delivery method will be an efficient means of fighting the disease and preserving the bat population. 
“Students will be involved in all stages from planning, coding, building and prototyping this system,” Stith said. “Students will be broken into teams and will incrementally develop the system through their different groups.”
Each group, according to Stith, will specialize and attack the problem and present the best solution to the given white-nose syndrome problem. 
“This will give students experience in real-world problem-solving, which they can apply to future endeavors,” Stith said. 
Stith maintained that students need to learn STEM concepts and real-use application, because that is how world-pressing problems, including water, food and population issues, are going to be solved. 
Newcastle High School will now move onto the second phase of the competition, with Stith creating a lesson plan outlining how students will tackle the disease. 
If selected to advance in the competition, Stith and Newcastle High School will join 50 other state winners that will submit videos of their project in action.