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| Left Photo : (Simply Southern Scientists–Elizabeth “Evie” Bickel, Erin Blalock, and Sreya Varanasi) Right Photo: (EnviroCom–Elizabeth Dillon, Sydney Hannibal, and Gillian Patton) |
The U.S. Army has announced two Discovery 9th grade teams, “Simply Southern Scientists” and “EnviroCom,” from Spring Valley High School as the 1st and 2nd place state winners, respectively, in the 14th annual eCYBERMISSION competition – a STEM initiative offered by the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP). Each first and second place team member will be awarded $1000 or $500 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds, maturity value, respectively, for being a state winner.
These teams worked together with their team advisor, Dr. Michelle Wyatt, to design projects focusing on biodiesel fuel blends (Simply Southern Scientists–Elizabeth “Evie” Bickel, Erin Blalock, and Sreya Varanasi) and building a prototype hydroelectric generator to harness the energy derived from rainwater (EnviroCom–Elizabeth Dillon, Sydney Hannibal, and Gillian Patton).
eCYBERMISSION, sponsored by the U.S. Army and administered by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), is a web-based STEM competition that is free to students and designed to help build students’ interest and knowledge in STEM. Students in grades six through nine are challenged with developing a solution to a real-world problem in their local community. Students compete on state, regional, and national levels for monetary awards, with national winning teams receiving up to $9,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds, maturity value. Through the eCYBERMISSION website, Simply Southern Scientists and EnviroCom created a mission folder—the official write-up of their project— which requires students to work through all steps of scientific practices before submitting to be evaluated and scored by a panel of virtual judges.