HOOVER, Alabama - A team of four students from Hoover High School today was named one of 47 finalists in a national competition that encourages students to create solutions to global environmental problems.
The four students -- Alex McArdle, Erica Carcelen, Trey McCombs and Kathryn Suttle - formed Team Cahaba and worked together to raise awareness about biodiversity and climate change in the Cahaba River and the impact that people have on the river.
The project made Team Cahaba the only finalist from Alabama in the 2013 Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge.
As part of their project, the Hoover students put together a graphic novel for students in grades 4-8 to educate them on the effects of climate change and the impact that people have on the Cahaba River.
They also posted QR codes along trails on the Hoover High campus that take people to the Cahaba. The QR (Quick Response) codes are two-dimensional matrix barcodes that people can scan with their smartphones and be connected to a website that contains a virtual map of the trails near Hoover High, documenting locations of interest and research along the river.
Team Cahaba also conducted workshops with students from Simmons Middle School, helping them identify the different species of fish and bugs in the Cahaba, as well as the various uses of land along the waterway, said Janet Ort, a science teacher at Hoover High who oversaw the students' work.
The graphic novel the students created for grade school students was inspired by a Skype interview with author Mark Hertgaard, who wrote a book about climate change for his daughter, Ort said. The Hoover students' book, which tells the plight of the lone surviving Cahaba freshwater mussel, is still having the artwork added to it and thus still in draft form, Ort said.
The book, in its final form, also will include an animal from Antarctica and information the Hoover students' learned by Skyping with a research team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham that is investigating climate change in Antarctica, Ort said.
"I'm extremely proud. They worked hard," Ort said of her students. It was wonderful to see them put together a plan and execute their vision, she said.
The students were able to take time to ask scientific questions and apply them to real-life situations, she said. That type of integral and analytic thinking is an important skill that serves the students well academically and helps them be socially responsible, she said.
The whole idea of their project was to help people establish connections with the world around them, Ort said. "When you have a personal connection to rivers and water systems and the habitats around them, you don't destroy them," she said. "You recognize them as a resource."
By studying what lives in the river, the students are able to tell about the health of the river and how biologically diverse the Cahaba River is, Ort said. "It means we have something special to protect," she said.
The Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge is put on by The Siemens Foundation, Discovery Education, the National Science Teachers Association and the College Board.
High school students from across the country were asked to identify an environmental issue in their community, create an environmentally friendly solution that used web-based curriculum tools powered by Discovery Education and that can be replicated by others.
"These students are the new environmental guardians for our planet and will help advance policy and technological improvements that will help protect the world around us," said Jeniffer Harper-Taylor, president of the Siemens Foundation. "The ideas we're seeing from these young students are amazing and impactful. The Siemens Foundation and its partners are proud to honor these students and their mentors for their commitment to environmental change."
As a result of the Siemens competition, past students have been able to change their schools' policies, open up their neighborhoods to new ideas and inspire politicians to craft environmentally friendly legislation on both the state and national level.
For more information on the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge and a list of the finalists and top three winners and their projects, visit www.wecanchange.com.
See the Hoover High Cahaba Team website here.
To see more news from Hoover, go to www.al.com/hoover
Source: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/04/hoover_high_student_team_one_o.html
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