Bergen 9th-Grader Wins State STEM Competition

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — A county ninth-grader's love of physics recently won her a statewide competition.

Gabrielle Grupenhof of Oradell enthusiastically shared how to calculate the acceleration of a car speeding down the highway in her video. The River Dell High-Schooler takes you through the not-so-complicated math in the 90-second video.

The Citizen STEM Initiative Award was a statewide competition open to ninth-grade physics students. It was sponsored by the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning, a nonprofit that works to provide underserved STEM students with access to better resources.

Another Bergen County student, Isaac Hyungwoo Yi, a student at Bergen Technical High School, was name one of three runners up.

“We could not be more pleased to have an opportunity to celebrate the exemplary creativity and passion for physics we see in these young students," said Robert Goodman, executive director of the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning. "They are a credit to their teachers’ dedication to ensuring all of their students not only understand the subject material, but appreciate the power of mastering STEM subjects.”

Video courtesy of Jill Golden PR

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Photo, from left: Rachel Rothman, chief technologist at the Good Housekeeping Institute, one of the competition's judges, Gabrielle Grupenhof and Robert Goodman, executive director of the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning.