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“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.

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:

• Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted
• Dr. Clint Koenig, Ohio Medical Director talked to students about their
• Dr. B.J. Hicks, President of the Columbus American Heart Association/American Stroke Association and a neurologist at Riverside Hospital Brenda Houston, Executive Director at the American Heart Association, Central Ohio
• Brenda Houston, Executive Director of the American Heart Association, Central Ohio
• Lou Von Thaer, Battelle President and CEO and
• Aimee Kennedy, Battelle Senior Vice President of Education, Philanthropy and STEM Learning

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:

• National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM Middle School – Akron
• National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM High School – Akron
• St. Vincent de Paul Parish School – Akron
• STEAMM Academy @ Hartford Middle School – Akron
• Winchester Trail Elementary School – Canal Winchester
• Allen Elementary – Chillicothe
• Chillicothe Middle School
• Mt. Logan Elementary – Chillicothe
• SCOPES (Science Cooperative of Physicians and Elementary Students) Academy at Unioto Elementary School – Chillicothe
• Cleveland School and Science and Medicine
• Metro Early College High School – Columbus
• Metro Institute of Technology – Columbus
• Ann Simpson Davis Middle School – Dublin
• Ridgeview STEM Junior High – Pickerington
• Herbert Mills Elementary – Reynoldsburg
• Health Sciences & Human Services STEM Academy (HS)2 – Reynoldsburg
• Kalida High School
• Chase STEMM Academy – Toledo
• Valley STEM + ME2 Academy – Youngstown

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.