CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Students at Deep Creek Middle School in Chesapeake have won $100,000 in technology for their school.
The students have been working to create a website and an app for high-need students, with poor vision, to access free prescription glasses. The app matches with poor vision with free exams and donation prescription eyeglasses.
Since launching their app, every student at DCMS who needs glasses has received them or soon will receive them, and the students are working to expand the service to other local schools.
The students were named a national winner in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest – a competition that encourages teachers and students to solve issues in their community using STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).
After presenting their project to a panel of judges on Monday, April 1 in New York City, the DCMS students were named national grand prize winners during an award ceremony at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.
Emerging from thousands of public school entries from across the country and being selected as one of 250 state finalists (one of 5 in Virginia), then the Virginia state winner, and then one of 10 national finalists, DCMS ultimately advanced through these phases of the contest to achieve the grand prize title of national winners.
The three national winners will be honored at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. the first week of May and will also have the opportunity to meet with and present their projects to their respective congressional representatives.
“This year’s national winners were truly impressive not only because of the passion and curiosity they have for solving critical community issues, but also because each school’s innovation represents a tangible solution capable of achieving measurable community impact,” said Ann Woo, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship, Samsung Electronics America. “We at Samsung are committed to elevating STEM learning because year after year, with the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest, we witness how it inspires students to explore their future potential as engineers, designers, mathematicians, software developers and more.”