Do Illinois high school students have what it takes to solve real-world problems? A group of students spent months researching food system issues and developing solutions as part of Northern Illinois University’s first-ever "Innovation Challenge."
With one hour to go before presentations, six months of work came down to a five minutes. DeKalb High School senior Margaret Nenia says they weren't nervous — at least not yet.
"I'm excited now," she said. "I'll be nervous later," as her group laughed.
DeKalb is one of five teams taking part in the challenge.
At the start of the school year, Nenia said students were presented with two broad food system problems and asked to choose one.
"Which I'm very thankful for," Nenia said, "because it left room for a lot of creativity in our solution."
The options were antibiotic resistance in cattle and microplastics in seafood.
Senior Mohammed Al Fatih said their group landed on microplastics. Although the cattle question seemed more relevant to rural northern Illinois, the team found a way to connect their solution to their community.
"We specifically are focused on agriculture," he said. "The seeds have a coating that has microplastics in it, which I didn't even know until we were introduced to this problem."
Seed coatings are used to improve germination and protect seeds. The DeKalb students proposed making coatings from shellfish and fungi instead of plastic.
A team from Romeoville High School tackled the microplastic issue from a different angle. Seniors Dylan Preston and Joey Chvoy said it took months to develop their approach.
"Towards the start," Preston said, "oh my goodness, Joey and I would work long nights at Starbucks, and we kept seeing all these things that didn't lead to a solution."
"It can get pretty pessimistic when you're researching all that type of stuff," Chvoy added. "You see all the data about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
The ocean’s largest plastic accumulation is estimated to weigh 100,000 tons.
After several dead ends, the Romeoville team had a breakthrough.
"My hand still hurts," said Preston, "from that high five we did."
Instead of cleaning up microplastics, they decided to tackle the source.
"We learned about this thing called photocatalysis," said Preston. "It'll break down harmful substances," Chvoy explained, "including microplastics, which is what makes us believe we can make a self-dissolving plastic.”
NIU-appointed mentors helped students turn their idea into a product, with staff assisting the last minute to make final adjustments.
Presentations were delivered “Shark Tank”-style to a panel of judges. The Romeoville team presented first, pitching their photocatalyst solution.
"Our belief," said Chvoy, looking out at crowd and judges, with their website displayed behind them, "is that if we incorporate these photocatalysts — the specific one we're working with is called titanium dioxide — into the manufacturing process of polyethylene, which is our type of plastic we're working with, then we can hopefully create a self-dissolving piece of plastic."
Judges asked about dissolution time and potential harmful byproducts. The team said sunlight could dissolve the plastic in six months to a year and addressed safety concerns.
Every presentation is different. Some bring props, hand-made models or YouTube videos.
Next, DeKalb presented using water bottles filled with colorful beads to illustrate microplastic accumulation.
"Imagine," said Al Fatih, "that this water bottle contains 538 tons of microplastics, which is a weight comparable to 135 Asian elephants."
"Now take 10 of those bottles," said teammate Saila Nataatmadja, "and what we have now is a representation of all of the microplastics found in our oceans."
Al Fatih and the team say, 'One big culprit? Those plastic seed coatings.'
"We are here today," he said, "to propose an alternative to seed coatings made from a material known as chitosan, a biodegradable, all natural alternative made from shellfish as well as fungi. We're particularly focusing on fungi, just because it's easier to manufacture.”
After their presentation, Al Fatih felt confident.
"It went better than I thought to be completely honest!" he said, laughing.
The Romeoville team also felt good about their presentation, though the five-minute time limit constrained them.
"We didn't get to mention everything we could have," said Chvoy, "but everything we did mention was strong."
Awards followed. The top three teams received cash prizes, and the winner earned a scholarship to one of NIU STEAM's summer camps. Another Romeoville team, led by Anna Mola and Emily Rog, won for a presentation on improving cow microbiomes.
Even after the challenge ended, some students planned to continue developing their solutions. Many, like Chvoy, think their solutions have the potential to make real change.
"We had one of the judges actually come up to us and say we could get in contact," Chovy said. "He loved our idea, and he said we could get in contact with some scientists and grad students at NIU. It could be possible to make this into a tangible idea, which I think is amazing."
Organizers said the goal was to give high school students an opportunity to tackle problems for real-world impact, not just for practice or grades.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
