Bennett Day High School Students Win National "Space for the Benefit of Earth Challenge" and Visit Blue Origin Rocket Factory

Bennett students represent two of ten teams selected from across the country to attend inaugural O'Neill Symposium with Blue Origin, the Club for the Future, and the Conrad Challenge.

CHICAGO, May 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Two teams of high school students from Bennett Day School, a PreK-12 school in Chicago's Fulton Market and West Loop neighborhood, won a national competition to attend the inaugural O'Neill Symposium hosted by Blue Origin and their Club for the Future after entering the Space for the Benefit of Earth Challenge. The Symposium was held from April 24-26 at Blue Origin's Orbital Launch Site and Manufacturing Complex on Merritt Island in Florida on the Space Coast.

The Space for the Benefit of Earth Challenge, managed by the Conrad Foundation and hosted on the Conrad Challenge student competition platform, asked students to innovate and utilize space resources to solve terrestrial issues on Earth such as clean water, clean power, sustainable food production, and more. The 11th and 12th Grade students at Bennett are studying Space Science in their Project-Based Learning (PBL) course, and competing in this challenge was an extension of their ongoing learning.

Out of nearly 1,000 submissions across the country, only 10 top-scoring teams were selected, and Bennett was proud to have two of the top ten teams selected nationally.

"This experience allowed me to connect with many great minds and meet amazing people who have truly inspired me," said Meryam Elmakoudi, a senior at Bennett who plans to study Biology and Earth & Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University next year. Meryam says she initially did not have much interest in Space Medicine, but now aspires to establish a career in the emerging field.

The Bennett student team named "LunarMed" focused on developing a space medical boot that uses animals of the Earth's oceans to inject a protein that could help astronauts complete mission tasks while being exposed to long flight atrophy and bone breaks or fractures. The team named "Mercury Cats" focused on creating a human waste sanitation system utilizing anaerobic bacillus bacteria to produce fertilizer that could be used to support human survival on the moon as well as for sustainable farming on Earth in areas suffering from hunger or food shortages.

"We need to move education into the future while working on Earth's problems. It's not too late," said Dr. Shannon Hurst, a teacher at Bennett with over 20 years of experience teaching STEM/science. "In my experience, this was truly a unique and inspiring experience. I am so proud of my students."

At the O'Neill Symposium, teams from Bennett had the opportunity to work collaboratively with other winning teams and subject matter experts from Blue Origin to integrate their projects and present their ideas. They also had the opportunity to tour Blue Origin's rocket production facilities and learn from distinguished guests such as former astronauts, space resource experts, engineers, scientists, and leaders in the future of colonization and exo-planetary travel.

"Students at Bennett really do reach for the stars! This was a rigorous challenge for high schoolers to innovate, design, and pitch ideas to tap into the limitless resources of space for the betterment of humanity," said Cameron Smith, CEO, Co-Founder, and a school parent at Bennett. Smith recently completed a graduate certificate program at the Colorado School of Mines in space resources and is serving as an adjunct teacher in Space Science. "We are deeply appreciative of the impact this experience will have on our happy and excited young learners and leaders."

For more information about Bennett Day School's program and admissions process, visit www.bennettday.org.

About Bennett Day School:
Bennett Day School is an agile and future-focused PreK-12 school, in the innovative Fulton Market district of Chicago, where students are challenged to learn and grow with purpose. This approach delivers happy and engaged students, adults, and faculty via dynamic project-based learning. Bennett prepares students today to be the lifelong learners and leaders of tomorrow.

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Samantha Rud
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SOURCE Bennett Day School