2 Mississauga schools up for $50K STEM prize in Canada-wide competition

Two Mississauga schools are finalists in a Canada-wide STEM competition.

Allan A. Martin Senior Public School and Port Credit Secondary School are both finalists in Samsung Canada Solve for Tomorrow—a nationwide STEM competition that challenges students to develop real-world solutions for pressing community issues.

Four Halton Region schools are also among the 12 finalists. Aldershot School in Burlington, Bishop Reding Catholic Secondary School in Milton, Elsie MacGill Secondary School Milton, and Thomas A. Blakelock High School in Oakville are in the running for the top prize.

Allan A. Martin Senior Public School is the only middle school finalist aside from École Publique aux Quatre Vents in Parry Sound, a Kindergarten to Grade 10 school.

Manisha Kumar, a Grade 7 teacher at Allan A. Martin told INsauga.com that she encouraged her students to enter the competition.

“They were super responsive,” said Kumar.

Two students—Micheal Chen and Arjun Sharma—came up with the submission that made it to the finals. The students proposed creating aqueous magnesium batteries as a more sustainable alternative to lithium batteries.

They did research and wrote a proposal, said Kumar.

As a finalist, the team won $2,500 in Samsung vouchers and/or Samsung products for the school. They will meet mentors virtually for the next step of the project, which is making a video about the batteries.

“They are so excited to be given the opportunity,” said Kumar. “It’s so fun to see students excited about a project.”

The grand prize is $50,000 in Samsung vouchers and/or Samsung products.

The team of innovative students from Port Credit Secondary School came up with a project to make heat-absorbing bricks. This idea would reduce reliance on HVAC systems by storing and releasing heat during peak energy usage hours.

Bishop Reding Catholic Secondary School (Milton) proposes reducing food waste and food insecurity with an app to connect individuals in need to businesses donating excess meals or groceries.

Elsie MacGill Secondary School’s (Milton) proposed kinetic plates to convert kinetic energy to electricity to sustainably power homes.

Thomas A. Blakelock High School (Oakville) proposed magnetized fishing nets that send warning signals to repel sharks to reduce the instances of marine bycatch.

Aldershot School in Burlington proposed a more effective method to identify faults in photovoltaic farms through the Quantum Monte Carlo method.

See all the 12 finalists and their projects here.