FORNEY, Texas – Students from Forney High School in the Forney Independent School District recently captured a state championship without ever stepping on the field of play or lacing up a pair of cleats. In fact, the students never left the classroom.
FORNEY, Texas – Students from Forney High School in the Forney Independent School District recently captured a state championship without ever stepping on the field of play or lacing up a pair of cleats. In fact, the students never left the classroom.
The new state title holders in Forney ISD are engineering students from Forney High School’s Project Lead the Way™ Engineering Program who wowed the engineers at Verizon Telecommunications with their mobile app concept. The students’ design for a new mobile app recently won the Best in State Championship in Verizon’s Innovative App Challenge.
The students were challenged to use Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), concepts to create an idea for an app that solved a problem in their school or in their community.
The team of Forney High School Project Lead the Way™ Engineering students that designed the mobile app include Abbey Polzin, Zachary Chavez, Thomas Sifuentes, Travis Coltharp and Amanda Koif. All of the students are seniors and plan on studying engineering in college.
While designing the app, the students had to consider the marketplace need, usefulness, audience and viability for the app. The student submitted their design concept online through a visual presentation.
Now that the team has won the Best in State title, they will participate in a live webinar hosted by the Verizon Foundation featuring industry experts who will share with the students how they use STEM skills in their own careers.
A panel of STEM educators and corporate innovators will judge the top Best in State teams across the country, provide feedback on their design concepts and then announce the top overall winning teams. Each winning school will receive a $10,000 cash grant plus professional support and training to help them bring their designs to life by building their apps and bringing them to the marketplace. In addition, students on each winning team will receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab and be invited to present their developed apps in person at the 2013 National Technology Student Association Conference in Orlando, Florida in June.
For more information about the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, visit the Verizon website at http://appchallenge.tsaweb.org/winners/index.html.
For more information about the Forney Independent School District, contact Larry Coker, Director of Communications at larry.coker@forneyisd.net or by phone at 972-564-4055.