Saving the lake? There’s an app for that!

 
The Jefferson Township Middle School was selected to win $70,000 in Samsung’s “Solve for Tomorrow” contest out of a field of 1,500 applicants from across the U.S.  The students of Dr. Nancy Harris’s Gateways Gifted and Talented program are among 12 finalist in the competition and have another chance to win an additional $30,000, and will be invited to Washington DC in April for the Solve for Tomorrow Awards Ceremony.
The students have taken up Samsung’s challenge to show how science, technology, engineering and mathematics may be used to address an environmental concern in the community. Working with Dr. Harris and Mr. Douglass Walker, Instructional Technology supervisor K-12, the students have developed a concept for a cell phone app they have named “Invase Erase” that will increase awareness of invasive species in the lake, and help to identify, photograph, and locate them.
The students worked with Dr.Randall FitzGerald of Montclair State University’s School of Conservation researching the issues of invasive species eradication, developing ideas for the cell phone application and creating a video submission for the Samsung contest.
A portion of the proposed app will provide residents and visitors with pictures and descriptions of invasive species such as zebra mussels, water chestnut and Eurasian milfoil. If a user thinks he has found one of these invasive species, he will be able to use the app to take a picture, mark the location with GPS data and link this information to a database for lake management. Instructions for eradicating invasive species will also be provided in the application.
There are five grand prizes being awarded by Samsung. The Samsung judging panel will pick four of the winners and you can help the Jefferson Township Middle School be the Community Choice Winner by voting at this website between now and March 12. Vote daily. Help the Jefferson Township Middle School win this technology and help save the lake!  Public voting closes at 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday March 12, 2012
Samsung  voting page https://pages.samsung.com/us/sft/video/index.jsp#top.
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More coverage of the students' efforts:
North Jersey.com:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/140151133_Middle_school_students_win__70K__voting_continues.html?page=all
JTMS News Vote for our school
http://blogs.jefftwp.org/wordpress/middleschool/2012/02/06/vote-for-our-school-samsung-solve-for-tomorrow/