Welcome...

Time and time again, communities have been faced with a variety of challenges. From natural disasters to a pandemic or other challenges, communities must come together to make their civic services and systems more strong, resilient and effective.  What if we galvanize the community to address these issues having students spearhead the process of designing the solution for building resilient communities?

 The South Jersey STEM & Innovation and Partnership (SJSIP) joins with New Jersey STEM Pathways Network (NJSPN) launches #NJSTEMTogether Communities Challenge. This is an annual challenge for New Jersey  high school students to come together and design a solution for a problem that their community is facing.          

Calling high school students to come together for a one-day community challenge. This would be a one day virtual event to gather all the participants online and they will present their solution to a problem. The students will have to identify the issues that their communities are facing today and how they would like to address the issue. For example, in the current scenario, this can involve designing a framework for addressing any pandemic going forward to building a solution for testing access or organizing an efficient way for food drive donations. The teams will have an opportunity to work with mentors from different industries depending on their area of problem and their solution. 

PBL Question: 

• High School Students: What can student community do to build a resilient community in response to the current pandemic?

  
  

FINAL PRESENTATION

Students need to prepare a communication plan to address the challenge that their community is facing and present their solution to the policymakers. The process has to be data driven which will include the researching the data and include the adversaries they may anticipate in their proposed design or solution. The solution can include designing a strategy or designing an app or a website or an urban planning map to address the problem. 

WHAT DO THE STUDENTS GET?

• Winning teams receive a cash prize of up to $2,000! Thanks to Siemens for their support! 

• Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker (LD-16) has offered to sponsor one of the winning teams’ legislative proposal for consideration. 

• Teams will have an opportunity to work with mentors from different industries.

• Opportunities to allow students to participate on a national platform such as Siemens’ EngineeringforChange competition, Lemelson-MIT Inventeams, Junior Science Humanities Symposium (individual event) and others.

Timeline

Fall 2020

Sep 25 - Online Registration Open

Oct 8 - Challenge Information STEMinar (virtual) 

Oct 27- Team Registration Closes

Nov 15 - Submit Proposal to Policymakers - Students will be stating the problems resulting from COVID-19 in the community that they would like to address,  specify which problem they would like to address and why (mention the research that supports their decision), and describe their solution for this problem in a letter to their local state senate and assembly legislators. 

Nov 18 - STEMinar: walk through of Mentoring Platform (virtual)  INVITATION ONLY 

Dec 3 - Challenge Update STEMinar (virtual)   INVITATION ONLY 

Winter 2020-21 

Jan 4 - Submit Design Blueprint and Communications Plan for comment

Jan 31 - Feedback provided on Design Blueprint and Communication Plan

Feb 4 - Challenge Update STEMinar (virtual)  INVITATION ONLY 

Spring 2021 

Develop Final Solution and Communications Plan for Presentation

March TBD, 2021 (New Jersey STEM Month) Presentation and Judging 

Post-Challenge Student Survey 

Rules

Registration Guidelines for Design Challenge 2020[Students] :

*It is a team event

*One (1) team of minimum 3 students up to maximum of 5 high school students, grades 9-12 with an optional One (1) school teacher/chaperone

*Please make sure you get consent from your parent upon registration. 

*Registration is open from 9/25/2020

*Space is limited and registrations will be accepted on a first come basis.

If you have any questions regarding these policies, please contact SJSIP team by email at sguzman@rdnj.org

More information can be found here.