New Hyde Park Memorial High School students awarded grants in water quality challenge

New Hyde Park Memorial High School submitted three winning proposals and were awarded $2,500 grants as part of the Long Island Water Quality Challenge, which challenged students to design solutions for preserving the crucial water resources of Long Island and reducing or eliminating nitrogen pollution. The Long Island Regional Planning Council and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation jointly organize the competition, which aims to promote learning in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Teams of students between grades eight and 12 were tasked with creating proposals that would allow the New Hyde Park school to reduce nitrogen pollution that were based on two well-known methods: low-input landscaping, which aims to limit the amount of nitrogen that seeps into groundwater, and storm water treatment programs.

Three student proposals were declared winners of the challenge in May, and each team was awarded a $2,500 grant to help bring their plan to life during the next school year.

From the school’s junior level, six students were awarded: Oishik Saha, Naman Maniar, Asmita Saha, Alan Pulinthanathu, Jash Mody and Tessa Lalson, all eighth graders, were recognized for their submission, titled “An Enhanced Stormwater Treatment System.” Eleven students from the school’s senior level were awarded as well: 10th graders Sahara John, Priya Persaud, Aditi Kaur, Christina Wilson and Isabella Prada won for their “Go G.R.E.E.N” plan; and ninth graders Ashley Pulinthanathu, Aparna Shibu and Rubianne Simon and 11th graders Anitta Kottai, Sanjit Menon and Jeremiah Varghese won for “Project E.A.R.T.H.”

The challenge, according to the Long Island Regional Planning Council’s website, “Helps students develop a greater understanding of how their classroom curriculum can be applied to protecting Long Island’s crucial water resources,” the pollution of which, according to an expert featured in a previous Herald story, is “getting worse.”

Angela Stone, a teacher at New Hyde Park Memorial High School who helped prepare students for the challenge, emphasized the importance of competitions such as the Long Island Water Quality Challenge in fostering student growth and providing students with an opportunity to solve problems affecting Long Islanders.

“These types of challenges are extremely important for students learning and growth because it gives them the opportunity to perform research and solve real world problems,” Stone said. “They behaved and worked as real scientists. They learned to speak to adults that work for our district, compile information/solutions already being used and utilize their science, math, and writing skills to formulate a novel solution to the problem.”

Stone said that since hands-on instruction was reduced by the coronavirus pandemic, competitions like this are especially important for ensuring that students work together and continue to grow intellectually and interpersonally.

“My favorite part of this experience as a teacher was how cohesively the students worked together under difficult circumstances. The COVID pandemic drove these amazing students out of their comfort level,” Stone said. “The ability for these students to work together for a common goal was an absolute pleasure to witness as an educator.”

Stone added that the learning is not ever for New Hyde Park Memorial High School students who took part in the Long Island Water Quality Challenge.

“I think the best part of the challenge will come in the second phase,” she said. “Behaving as true scientists, as winners of the grants, the students will be able to modify their proposals to meet the budget and see their plans come to fruition. They will have gone through all the steps a scientist would. It has been an amazing opportunity and given students real world experiences.”