Pittsburgh Students Tackle Water Quality

Students from Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh have been selected as "Best in State" in the Junior Engineering Technical Society's (JETS) annual TEAMS engineering competition. The two, 8-member teams took the top ranked spots for both the 9/10 and 11/12 grade levels. This year's competition focused on one of the world's pressing problems: the global water shortage.
Teacher Sally Martin says the students really enjoyed working as a group and offering suggestions to one another. Martin says the first half of the test was a series of mathematical questions and the second part encouraged "creativity, thinking outside the box....they had to come up with solutions to a problem but not mathematically."
Martin says the students had to tackle the issue of improving water quality and availability through a variety of methods: everything from "ceramic pot filtering that is used in some third world countries, to super pure water, to reverse osmosis, to saving water at home."
The results of the Allderdice students' "Best in State" competition will now be matched up with state winners from across the country with the nation's best announced later this month.
Martin says the purpose of the competition is to get more kids interested in engineering by giving them a theme, and issue to which they can relate.