NHS students earn state title at STEM competition

NEWBERRY — Samsung recently recognized students at Newberry High School with a check for $10,000 for earning the state title in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow national STEM competition.

The competition challenges public school students from sixth to 12th grade to explore how STEM can be applied to help address pressing issues within their local communities.

For special education teacher Heather Alexander’s Career Lab students, the group’s project consisted of a pollinator garden and compost system for the school.

Alexander said despite not winning, her students have also been working alongside Crista Lukoski with the Newberry Soil and Water Conservation District. She said Lukoski has helped the students make rain barrels and planted trees in the Newberry High School quad.

“We started making a compost and realized we were feeding wildlife with our compost pile, so we’ve hit some snags. Samsung came back a month or so ago and asked if we would do another video (part of the application process) – my kids enjoyed doing it the first time so I said why not,” she said. “On our first meeting, Angie at Samsung said she had great news – ‘we’re going to give you $10,000.’ We had to spend it quickly with a list of things we needed. I gave $3,000 to the robotics team because they helped us with our Samsung project originally and helping put together our model and I gave all seven teachers here $1,000 to spend. What they didn’t spend – I bought machines for our Career Lab for our students so they now have a sublimation printer to print decals to go on t-shirts, a laser engraver and some robotics kits, so they’ll get some hands on science and technology experience.

During the check presentation, the students were also able to get a behind the scenes look at how Samsung creates appliances. Alexander said it was an experience her students couldn’t stop talking about and also gave a shout-out to her Samsung mentor Michaelle Lewis.

“That was huge for them. They didn’t stop talking about it. They all want to work at Samsung now and to see kids that have graduated from here that they knew or people they know in the community – they just thought it was the coolest,” she said. “The level of respect they have shown my students – they treated my students like they were executive hotshots. They didn’t have to do that. They really care about my kids and they’re invested in the community, which is refreshing honestly. It’s refreshing to see a corporation do that. Every question kids asked was answered and with the film crew – every question they asked was answered.