On April 20, nearly 14,000 students, educators, volunteers, community members and parents gathered at the Central Bank Center in Lexington to watch P-12 students from across the state showcase what they know and can do with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) and demonstrate many career-ready skills. Students participated in nearly 50 different STLP competition areas, like robotics, coding, web design and newscasting.
STLP students created projects, products or services as part of the program and demonstrated their learning by competing in various technology-rich events, including instructional, technical or community development projects; digital content creation such as digital art, photography, design, programming, app development and robotics; and technical services, like student help desk, network engineering and wireless applications.
“We are so proud of all our STLP students for designing innovative solutions to real-world issues using what they have learned in their STEAM courses,” said Kentucky Education Commissioner and Chief Learner Jason E. Glass. “STLP is a great example of what we are continuing to build upon with the United We Learn vision in order to provide students with more ways to demonstrate the career-ready skills they are gaining in and out of the classroom.”
The state championship began with more than 2,000 team and individual entries. Throughout the course of the day, judges identified 61 final projects and students competed until a final four were named state champions in elementary, middle and high school, as well as an overall winner.
The four state champions are:
- Best Grade 9-12 project: Bowling Green High School (Bowling Green Independent) for Low-cost Precision Agriculture Solutions, their low-cost open-source GPS system that allows smaller, lower-income farmers to have the same precision tools as larger, higher-production farmers.
- Best Grade 6-8 project: Ashland Middle School (Ashland Independent) for their in-home hub that will help make life easier for individuals with memory loss and ease the burden on their families by providing reminders, facilitating communication and providing a greater sense of security.
- Best Grade K-5 project: Russell-McDowell Intermediate School (Russell Independent) for making a website and QR codes to put in the Greenup County War Memorial to provide visitors background information on the memorial.
- Best Technical Project: Trimble County Jr. Sr. High School for their agriculturally based project that is geared toward locating and isolating breaches in an electric fence as a preventive measure before it becomes a problem for the farmer.
The students that earned a state championship title will move on to the International Society for Technology and Education Conference in New Orleans, La.
During the evening STLP award ceremony, Kentucky Board of Education Chair Lu S. Young and Vice Chair Sharon Porter Robinson also awarded two students the title of 2022 Outstanding STLP Ambassador: Alexander Ladd, a sophomore at Allen County High School, and Jess Thompson, a senior at the Ignite Institute (Boone County).
This is the 28th year of STLP in Kentucky and the 15th year Kentucky has had a state championship. The Kentucky STLP has approximately 60,000 participating students across the Commonwealth.