Students from Cottage Grove Middle School have been awarded top honors at the 2023-24 ZOOMS STEM Design Challenge, presented by Flint Hills Resources. The Minnesota Zoo’s award-winning program, which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary, is a yearlong project that challenges elementary, middle and high school students from across Minnesota and beyond to develop solutions for real zoo-based scenarios. A record 5,200 students participated in this year’s challenge.
Of these, only 134 projects were selected to advance to the exhibition, where zoo staff and Flint Hills Resources engineers review the projects and present awards to the winning students. The top three projects at the elementary, middle and high school levels were awarded at the exhibitions between March 4-8. Student teams were awarded prizes for the conservation, innovation, teamwork and zookeeper categories.
Projects by students from Jennifer Strong’s class at Cottage Grove Middle School earned first, second and third place as well as the Zookeeper Award at the 2024 ZOOMS STEM Design Challenge.
“The Minnesota Zoo is incredibly proud of these students and teachers’ dedication, teamwork and excellence in this year’s ZOOMS STEM Design Challenge,” said John Frawley, director of the Minnesota Zoo and president of the Minnesota Zoo Foundation. “For 10 years, this award-winning program has given students the opportunity to grow and demonstrate their creative problem-solving skills. We are consistently inspired by the ingenuity expressed by these students and the care they show for the animals, habitats, and people that make the Minnesota Zoo such a special place.”
This year, students were challenged to engineer innovative exhibit enrichments or exhibit designs for the Minnesota Zoo’s bison and black-tailed prairie dogs, which can be seen from the new Treetop Trail. Students were evaluated on their research skills, uniqueness of ideas, plans for implementing the solution and overall presentation.
“The Minnesota Zoo is the perfect place to teach students that STEM concepts are all around us,” said Heather Rein, director of community affairs at Flint Hills Resources. “We are grateful for this longstanding partnership and are proud to have the opportunity to foster a love for STEM in our local students. Thank you to the students, teachers and our partners at the Minnesota Zoo who continue to make this program so special.”
The ZOOMS STEM Design Challenge is made possible by a partnership dating back to 1989 between the Minnesota Zoo and Flint Hills Resources.
About the Minnesota Zoo
The Minnesota Zoo is a year-round destination providing a window into the natural world. With hundreds of species of animals, worldwide conservation efforts, and acres of scenic beauty, the Zoo is a resource to connect people, animals and the natural world to save wildlife. For more information visit mnzoo.org. The Minnesota Zoo is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and an institutional member of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).
About Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend refinery
The Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend refinery produces transportation fuels used throughout the Midwest, including most of Minnesota’s gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, as well as other products people rely on such as propane and asphalt. Located 17 miles southeast of Minneapolis, Pine Bend has a refining capacity of 375,000 barrels per day and is among the most efficient and safest oil refineries in the country. Flint Hills Resources directly and indirectly supports more than 4,000 Minnesota jobs and has invested nearly $1.7 billion in upgrades and improvements to its Minnesota facilities since 2010. With 1,000 full-time employees, the Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend refinery is one of the largest employers in Dakota County. More information about the Pine Bend refinery is available at PineBendRefinery.com.
