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EnergySmart Schools Inventors Summit Takes Place at Berkeley Lab on January 12, 2001

January 9, 2001

BERKELEY, CA — Four creative elementary school students, winners of the EnergySmart Schools Contest, will meet on Jan. 12 with the nation's top energy scientists and engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), where they will build their energy-saving ideas. The national invention contest for elementary school students was sponsored by Owens Corning and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Students drew an original, energy-saving device and submitted a 100-word-or-less description of how it works for a chance to be appointed an EnergySmart Schools Inventor and participate in the EnergySmart Schools Inventor Summit on January 12, 2001 at Berkeley Lab.

The winners are:

Annie Austin, sixth grade, Lewis Farrell Elementary School, Philadelphia, PA
Kate Flor-Stagnato, fourth grade, Coles School, Scotch Plains, NJ
Jonathan Ioviero, fifth grade, Oak Orchard Elementary School, Medina, NY
Michael Torrey, fifth grade, Forest Park Elementary School, Fremont, CA

The EnergySmart Schools Inventors will receive a $250 savings bond and an all-expense paid trip to build their inventions with the help of Berkeley Lab and Owens Corning scientists and engineers. All four inventors will continue on to New York City on a press tour in February to exhibit their award-winning, energy-saving inventions.

At the EnergySmart Summit on January 12, the winners and their families will take a tour of Berkeley Lab in the morning, have lunch, and then convene at a workshop site in the afternoon to build their inventions with the help of scientists and engineers from the Lab and Owens Corning. A VIP ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. with Berkeley Lab Director Charles V. Shank, Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, Fremont Mayor Gus Morrison, Owens Corning's Dave Brown (President of the Insulation Products Division), and officials of the Department of Energy.

Berkeley Lab's Engineering Division has been working since the winners were announced in December to develop "kits" that the student inventors will be able to assemble into their inventions when they arrive at the Lab. The progress of this process may be viewed at EnergySmart Schools Inventors web site.

The web site contains the winners' original plans, the development of those plans into working designs by Engineering Division volunteers, and pictures of the development teams.