Help Vote for Oliver Street School

Updated: March 25, 2014
Oliver Street Elementary School WON the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. As one of the five winners in the nationwide contest, the school has won $140,000 in technology for the school, which will be used to further develop their river project as well as to enhance and expand the school's existing STEM program.

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Oliver Street School, an elementary school in Newark, NJ is taking its prototype and idea of preserving the quality our water supply nationally. Only a few months ago, James Intrabartolo and a group of his S.T.E.M students (grades 6-8) entered the Samsung-Solve for Tomorrow contest. A contest that (according to Samsung), "gives schools across the U.S. the opportunity to raise interest in Science Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects among students by awarding their schools with a share of over $2 million in technology. The task: "To show how STEM can be applied to help improve your local community".

James and his students immediately focused on water pollution. Specifically, how storm drains collect trash and sewage that ultimately flows directly into the Passaic River. In fact, each year over 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated storm water and industrial waste are dumped into U.S. waters. Approximately 46 percent of lakes and 40 percent of the rivers in America are too polluted for fishing, aquatic life, or swimming.

With this problem in mind, the team focused on the creation of a retro-fit storm drain cover that is designed to capture and filter waste from the storm drains, preventing it from entering the waterways. Out of nearly 2,400 applications from elementary to high schools, from private to public, Oliver Street Elementary School would end up being chosen to represent New Jersey as 1 of 51 state finalists. Moving onto the national level, the team needed to create a prototype and a 3 minute video documenting their idea, the design process, and exactly how their prototype functioned. Without delay, the team headed off to a hardware store, which donated the needed supplies, and utilized a free Google design program, creating 2 working prototypes and their video.

The team was notified that their video was 1 of 15 national finalists. James and a couple of his students will now travel to the South by Southwestern educational conference in Austin, Texas to pitch their idea to a panel of judges and compete for the National Prize.

They have already been awarded over $55,000 in technology from Samsung; however they are focused on the grand prize of an additional $140,000 and a celebratory trip to Washington D.C.

See Oliver's Video at www.samsung.com/solve, where the public will have an opportunity to vote for their favorite. The public voting period begins today, Tuesday, February 25, 2014 and will run till March 14th, 2014. You can also help by sharing on twitter, facebook and instagram using #SamsungSolve and #TeamOSS. They will be tallying up the hashtags as part of the contest.