LYND — Lynd Public School has been named one of 300 state finalists in Samsung’s 15th annual Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition, and was one of five Minnesota schools named. This marks the first time Lynd is named a finalist in the national competition, which empowers students in grades 6-12 to create innovative solutions to issues in local communities through science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

“For the first phase, they (schools) had to identify what the challenge is in their community, and then show how they were going to use STEM to solve it,” Senior Manager of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Angie Adams said. “They’re still very much at the idea of things, and as they continue on in the competition, they’ll be working more and more on their project and bringing it to life.”

According to Samsung, there were thousands of entries submitted across the country.

Lynd is planning to establish a school garden that offers self-sustaining features through self-watering and solar energy. The garden will not just add to the school, but will be available to the community during the summer as well.

The plan is to incorporate STEM elements to the domed greenhouse and the garden in general, by capturing rainfall into IBC tanks to be distributed by micro pumps to the plants for an automatic watering process. Solar panels will be used for power, and the greenhouse will use geothermal heating and natural gas.

“We’re very excited for them (Lynd). It’s one of the first times they have advanced to the next phase of competition,” Adams said.

Samsung originally started the competition to create opportunities and support schools specializing in STEM, because of the growing industry.

“Samsung (has a) deep belief in the importance of STEM in improving daily lives, and also our commitment to ensuring an engaged STEM workforce,” Adams said. “Obviously, we are a company that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for STEM. So, we have really invested in that. We invest in teachers and in students if they’re excited about STEM, they consider it as something that has a place in their life, and if it’s something they might want to go into in the future.”

This first phase of the competition was creating ideas and submitting it. Each state finalist school has won a $2,500 Samsung technology prize package.

The selected schools now move on to the next phase in developing their projects. 50 state winners across the country will be announced late in January, who will be awarded $12,000 worth of Samsung technology.

“It’s (the next step) really continuing to refine their idea and to really think about how they’re going to bring it to life,” Adams said. “They have to think about what data they need to collect, and how they are going to measure success. They’re really moving beyond the idea phase and beginning to bring their project into something that could actually be sort of launched in their community.”

From the state winners, the national top-10 finalists will be announced on March 18, and three national winners will be named in April.

“From those 10, we invite them all to a live in-person pitch event where they get up on the stage and pitch their ideas to panel judges,” Adams said. “From there, we narrow it down to three top winners.”

The other four Minnesota schools named as state finalists are Mounds View High School in Arden Hills, Byron Middle School in Byron, Eden Prairie High School and Edgerton Elementary in Maplewood.

“We’ve also just really loved seeing the depth and breadth of challenges that students are coming up with solutions for,” Adams said. “We’ve got climate change, food insecurity, unhoused populations, mental health; There’s just so many different ideas that students have to create change, and it’s really inspiring for all of us to see.”

The three national winning schools will each earn a $100,000 prize package. Throughout the entirety of the competition, Samsung is estimated to give out around $2 million in prize based retail value.

“I really want to reiterate how proud we are of Lynd Public School and their accomplishment, and all of the schools in Minnesota that applied and made it to the state finalists this year,” Adams said. “We wish them all the best as they continue in the competition.”