PLTW School Seeks Votes in Samsung Contest

Samsung is giving $1 million to schools, in its "Solve for Tomorrow" video contest. Twenty-five schools, nationwide, are each awarded a video camcorder, Adobe photo/video editing software, and a computer to create a video on the effects of STEM in improving school environments and their communities. Schools enter this contest by going to a website, filling out an application, and answering questions about how the contest would apply to their school.

Sutter Middle School, in Folsom, Calif., is one of the semi-finalists. The video, "Sutter Middle School Samsung Contest," will be uploaded to YouTube.com on February 6, 2012, for a public vote. The video with the most votes will receive $100,000 of products, software, and programming, from Samsung, Microsoft, the Adobe Foundation and DirecTV. During the Phase Three Online Public Voting period, legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia age 13 and older, can go to www.samsung.com/solvefortomorrow or www.Facebook.com/SamsungUSA to register and vote for “Sutter Middle School Samsung Contest” on Facebook and Twitter.

Sutter Middle School's Samsung video promotes students to register for the PLTW 2 class. Girls are featured to convince other girls that STEM is fun.

The goal of the contest is to "show how STEM can help improve the environment in your community." Local businesses work with Sacramento's organization, LEED (Linking Education and Economic Development), to encourage the growth of STEM through PLTW in order to train students to work in local businesses. The partnerships fostered with Sutter Middle School start students on an exciting journey to a career where they can give back, in the future, to the community that gives to them now.

STEM-based professions are short of candidates. Debbie Krikourian has been teaching PLTW courses for five years. The curriculum uses the project-based learning process to turn students on to learning STEM. Students enter contests, such as: Intel International Science, Math and Engineering Fair; Folsom High Regatta (boat building contest); Council of Educational Facility Planners International's (CEFPI) "School of the Future"; and robotics competitions. They use the engineering design process to implement STEM into real life projects and to solve problems. Community professionals from Intel, Rainforth Grau Architects, Williams + Paddon Architects, California Government Affairs Director of the Sacramento Association of Realtors, and the Folsom Mayor are among those that mentor the students. Students are given an opportunity to work with community members, while striving to meet personal project goals using STEM to develop ways to make their community a better place to live. This year, Mrs. Krikourian's seventh-grade students placed first in the Northern California School of the Future contest.