Brooklyn’s M.S. 88 wins $110,000 tech prize in Samsung contest

March 11, 2013 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Thinking green has brought a $110,000 technology windfall to the Peter Rouget Middle School (M.S. 88) in Park Slope.

M.S. 88 is one of five grand prize winners in Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow contest for their project combating pollution in the Gowanus Canal.

The school will attend a special awards ceremony in Washington D.C. on April 17.

Students at M.S. 88 created a short video submission (see below) about pollution in the Gowanus Canal. After much research, the students figured out that installing a green roof on their school would help absorb storm water runoff and decrease water pollution in the Gowanus.

M.S. 88 has been studying the environment for years now, most recently through a sustainability program developed by Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF) and M.S. 88 Principal Ailene Mitchell.

Solve for Tomorrow, Samsung’s third annual $1 million educational contest, challenged teachers and students across the US to “show how STEM can help the environment in their community.” More than 1,600 schools from across the country entered the contest that kicked off in August.

Seventy-five classrooms were selected as semi-finalists and received a Samsung camcorder, laptop, and Adobe editing software to create videos to compete in the video phase of the contest.