“We want to help people stay healthy,” – 1st grader Lily England from Unioto Elementary School in Chillicothe at the 2018 Student Solutions Showcase.
At the start of the school year, we joined with the American Heart Association to ask students to put their knowledge and creativity toward ending heart disease. On Tuesday, more than 100 students from across Ohio came to Columbus to show off their ideas.
This year’s event reached more students than ever. It also was the first statewide design challenge in Ohio open to elementary students. A group of first graders created exercise videos for their class. Another team created plans for creation of a local park devoted to heart health. Older students created scientific presentations, including a statistical analysis of the benefits of calorie counting against exercise.
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Each participating school used a design challenge model. In this method, school leaders help students create new ideas while tying the work to the knowledge and skills students need to learn.
NBC4 Columbus filmed this report.
The students were joined by representatives of the American Heart Association, Battelle, the Ohio Department of Health, and the Ohio Secretary of State.
Speakers:
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Battelle, the science and technology organization that manages our network, hosted the event.
You can also read the press release from Battelle here.
Congratulations to all these students and the other 2,800 students who participated in schools across the state.
Participating schools:
If you’d like to get your school involved in next year’s design challenge, sign up here to receive our emails. Have a great suggestion about what challenge students should tackle? Suggest it in the comments below.