Lake Washington SD Students Score $41K In STEM Challege

From C + C: On May 23, Google and KPF will host an awards ceremony to celebrate the top-performing schools and students from the KITE STEM Challenge. Winning Lake Washington District schools will receive a total of $41,500, donated by Google, to increase STEM programming in the classroom.

Rep. Larry Springer (45th District) will join the event to announce the winners and hand out prizes that range from $10,000 for the first-place high school to $1,000 for the third-place elementary school. Students with the highest scores will also receive individual prizes, including Pacific Science Center memberships, IMAX tickets and other swag from Google.

Media will get to watch as local students and teachers are awarded with prizes, and will have an opportunity to speak with representatives from Google, KPF, Kirkland School District, and Rep. Larry Springer’s office.

Who:

• Rep. Larry Springer, Deputy Majority Leader for Jobs and Economic Development
• Darcy Nothnagle, head of external affairs for the NW at Google
• Sally Otten, executive director of Kirkland Parks Foundation (KPF)
• Traci Pierce, Lake Washington School District Superintendent

When:

• Wednesday, May 23, 2018
• 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Where:

• Google Kirkland Campus
• 747 6th St S, Kirkland, WA 98033

Visuals:

• Awards show with Rep. Larry Springer handing out prizes
• Local students and teachers being surprised with prizes from competition
• Students and teachers interacting with spokespeople
• Teachers and students from Lake Washington School District

The challenge ran from April 23 through May 13, and gave students the opportunity to earn entry points for their school by answering STEM-related questions through the KITE STEM app on their smartphones.

ABOUT GOOGLE

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google has over 2,900 employees in Washington state in offices in Seattle and Kirkland; since 2011, Google has awarded more than $20 million to nonprofits and schools in Washington state. In 2016, Google generated $8.91B in economic impact for Washington businesses, website publishers and nonprofits and provided $19.7M in free advertising to Washington state nonprofits.

The winning schools are:

• First place high school ($10,000) - Redmond High School
• Second place high school ($5,000) - Lake Washington High School
• Third place high school ($3,000) - Tesla STEM High School
• First place middle school ($6,000) - Kirkland Middle School
• Second place middle school ($3,000) - Environmental and Adventure School
• Third place middle school ($2,000) - Redmond Middle School
• First place elementary schools ($3,000 each) - Kirk Elementary & Thoreau Elementary
• Second place elementary schools ($1,500 each) - Rose Hill Elementary & Twain Elementary
• Third place elementary schools ($1,000 each) - Alcott Elementary & Lakeview Elementary
• Participation prize ($500 each) - Blackwell Elementary, Juanita Elementary & Stella Schola Middle School

ABOUT KIRKLAND PARKS FOUNDATION

The Kirkland Parks Foundation is built on a crowdfunding platform with the goal of giving the citizens in Kirkland a vehicle through which they can conceptualize, plan, fund and implement projects to enhance our parks beyond the scope of the good work already done by the Kirkland Parks Department.

Photo courtesy of C + C