ExploraVision Science Program Looks to the Future,
Announces 2008 Regional Winners

Young “Inventors” Share Their Ideas for Wide Variety of Exciting New Medical Advancements, Solutions for Environmental Problems, and Better Future Living!

ARLINGTON, VA, March 6, 2008 – The future has never been brighter – just ask today’s young people! The 16th annual Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards Program today announced its 2008 Regional Winners, spotlighting students’ innovative ideas for future technologies. Sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the ExploraVision program is one of the world’s largest K –12 science and technology competitions. This year, the program received 4,527 team entries representing the participation of 14,042 students from across the U.S. and Canada.

ExploraVision: Where Dreams Meet Real Scientific Research…
The ExploraVision regional winners were chosen for how they combined their imagination with the tools of real scientific research to express their vision for future technologies that could exist in 20 years. The students are required to present their ideas in a way that reflects modern scientific methods, to help them learn how to examine problems and derive solutions much the same way scientists do in the field. At the regional judging level, a panel of 68 judges, including science educators, scientists and engineers, evaluates the written entries and chooses the twenty-four regional winners.

With its multi-level, imaginative and fun approach to learning, the ExploraVision program is designed to appeal to a broad range of students of all interest, skill and ability levels. As a testament to the program’s value as an educational tool, many teachers across the country now incorporate ExploraVision into their regular science curriculum, and for many former ExploraVision winners, the program has served as encouragement to pursue further science-related education and/or careers.

This year, winning ideas included a host of potential future breakthroughs that could help make the world a better place. Ideas range from solutions to help human beings become better stewards of the environment, to breakthroughs that could help health care practitioners provide patients with new, more effective therapies for a variety of ailments, to convenient inventions that could enhance the quality of life for everyone. The students’ winning projects reflected ongoing research in the fields of nanotechnology, GPS systems, energy-harnessing techniques, gene research, and bio-plastics. Students showed a strong interest in consumer product appliances and electronics, representing over 30 percent of team entries this year, among other noteworthy trends. (See enclosed document for complete list of winning entries.)

Future Medical Breakthroughs
The ExploraVision program has always sparked a great deal of interest among young people in imagining ideas that could provide innovative solutions to medical problems, and this year was no exception with over one-fourth of the entries focused on medical innovations. A team of 11th grade students from Ontario, Canada envisioned a new Cervical Analysis Test (C.A.T.) that would help detect the large number of potentially fatal cases of cervical cancer that escape detection each year. Two students teams, one from North Logan, UT and a home-schooled two-sister team from Augusta, GA, came up with separate ideas for innovations that could help people suffering from a variety of muscle-related diseases. And a team of 5th and 6th grade students from Edinburg, TX envisioned TBMS (Taste Bud Modifier System), a way to help prevent obesity and the many accompanying health problems such as Diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, cancers and arthritis by literally making healthy foods taste better (and unhealthy ones taste worse!)

Technologies to Help the Environment
Several of this year’s ExploraVision students drew inspiration by attempting to come up with solutions to problems that face the world’s environment. Three 9th grade students from Pacific Palisades, CA imagined a new type of four-way catalytic converter that would create electrical energy for automobiles in a new more environmentally-sound way; and with news about the world’s energy crisis often dominating headlines these days, it was not surprising that several student teams envisioned new ways of generating renewable clean energy, including a system for drawing energy from the ocean waves, as well as wind energy with turbines placed on tall buildings.

Life in the Future Will Be Easier – For People and Animals!
Several student projects offered new ideas for making daily tasks easier. A team of second and third grade students from Olathe, KS, for example, took on the perennial problem of “lost-and-found” with their project, the I-Finder, a special machine that would help people locate lost items and electronics. A team of 2nd grade students from Monticello, New York even came up with an idea that would benefit both man and his best friend—The Pet Dream Automatic Pet Door and Tattoo Pen, an ingenious new way to let household pets, identified by a special painless tattoo, enter and leave the home.

Noted Toru Uchiike, Chairman and CEO of Toshiba America, Inc., “Toshiba is a company that is, and always has been, fascinated by the prospect of using technology to make the world a better place in which to live. We have sponsored the ExploraVision program for the last 16 years as a way for us to light a spark of creativity among today’s young people. The program encourages students to dream, imagine, and understand how science and technology actually progresses in the real world, through hard scientific research, teamwork and analytic thinking. It is truly gratifying for us each year to see how many wonderful and potentially beneficial projects are entered in this competition, and we could not imagine a program that better reflects Toshiba’s own ideals and aspirations.”

“ExploraVision offers teachers an engaging and fun way to approach science instruction and illustrate connections between classroom concepts and real world. The program has enabled hundreds of thousands of students of all ages to embrace science while learning the necessary life skills of teamwork and cooperation,” said Gerry Wheeler, Executive Director, NSTA. “We commend both students and teachers for their creativity and hard work needed to participate in this national competition.”

About the ExploraVision Program…
The ExploraVision program challenges students to research scientific principles and current technologies as the basis for designing innovative technologies that could exist in 20 years. Students work in teams of two to four, and since the program’s inception, almost 245,000 students have submitted entries. Students on the four first-place ExploraVision national winner teams will each receive a $10,000 U.S. Series EE Savings Bond. Students on second-place teams will each receive a $5,000 savings bond. (Canadian winners receive Canada Bonds purchased for the equivalent issue price in Canadian dollars.) The eight teams will also receive an expenses-paid trip with their families, mentor, and coach to Washington, D.C. for a gala awards weekend in June 2008. Activities will include a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress, a Science Showcase during which the students will display and demonstrate their winning ideas, and sightseeing around the nation’s capital. The highlight of ExploraVision weekend will be a gala awards banquet and ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center where students will be formally recognized for their creativity and accomplishments.

For more information or an application for 2009, visit www.exploravision.org or e-mail exploravision@nsta.org.

About Toshiba
The Tokyo-based Toshiba Corporation is a leading innovator and diversified manufacturer and marketer of advanced electronic and electrical products, spanning information and communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and materials, power systems, industrial and social infrastructure systems, and household appliances. Toshiba employs over 14,000 people in North America and Toshiba America, Inc., is the holding company for five Toshiba operating companies in the United States.

Toshiba’s U.S.-based companies and some of their chief products are as follows: Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (Semiconductors, Flash Memory-Based Storage Solutions, LCD, and custom chips); Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (Laptop Computers, Projectors, and Hard Disk Drives, Telephony Products); Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. (Copiers, Facsimiles, Printers); Toshiba International Corporation (Motors, Motor Controls, Power Electronics, Power Generation Equipment, Automation); Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. (Computed Tomography, Magnetic Resonance, X-ray and Ultrasound); Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C.(Flat Panel LCD TVs, and portable products); Toshiba America Foundation (Supports science and mathematics education across the United States) and Toshiba of Canada, Ltd. (Made up of four operating divisions).

About NSTA
The Arlington, VA-based National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) is the largest professional organization in the world promoting excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all. NSTA's current membership includes more than 57,000 science teachers, science supervisors, administrators, scientists, business and industry representatives, and others involved in science education.

Monticello students win award in one of the world's largest K-12 student science and technology competitions
-- Student Team from George L. Cooke School Will Advance to Finals in Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards Program, Prepare Web Site For National Judging --

ARLINGTON, VA, April 2, 2008 – The 16th annual Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Awards program, one of the world’s largest K-12 student science and technology competitions, recently announced that a team of two 2nd grade students from the George L. Cooke School in Monticello is this year’s regional winning team in the K-3 grade category. The students, Truth Muller and John Paul Mauer, are one of only 24 teams chosen as regional winners from a total of 4,527 team entries submitted to ExploraVision this year, representing the participation of 14,042 students from the United States and Canada.

The winning project, titled The Pet Dream Automatic Pet Door and Tattoo Pen, is an ingenious new way of letting household pets enter and leave the home, identifying them by a special painless tattoo. The ExploraVision competition evaluates entrants in six different regions across the U.S. and Canada in four grade levels. The Monticello students are regional winners in the program’s Region 1, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The ExploraVision program, sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), challenges students to research scientific principles and current technologies as the basis for designing innovative technologies that could exist in 20 years. Students work in teams of two to four, and since the program’s inception, almost 245,000 students have submitted entries. This year’s regional winning teams envisioned a broad range of technological innovations with the goal to improve the quality of life in the future. Winning ideas included a host of potential future breakthroughs, ranging from solutions for helping human beings become better stewards of the environment, to breakthroughs that could help health care practitioners provide patients with new, more effective therapies for a variety of ailments, to a variety of convenient inventions that could enhance the quality of life for everyone.

Coached by their teacher, Linda Randall, the students from the George L. Cooke School envisioned The Pet Dream Automatic Pet Door and Tattoo Pen. The system would use a combination of a specially designed automatic pet door and a magnetic, metallic Pet Dream Tattoo pen that would allow pet owners to mark their pet. The “tattoo” would be recognized by the pet door whenever the animal chose to come or go, allowing automatic entry and exit.

At the regional level, a panel of 68 judges—including science educators, scientists and engineers—evaluated the written entries and selected 24 regional winners. The projects were judged on innovative ideas that combine imagination with scientific principles.

For the next phase of the competition, the winning team, along with students from the other 23 regional winning teams, will create working web sites and prototypes of their invention to convey their ideas. Eight finalist teams will be selected in May (four first- and four second-place winners). Students on each of the four first-place teams will each receive a U.S. Savings Bond valued at $10,000 at maturity. Students on second-place teams will receive a U.S. Savings Bond valued at $5,000 at maturity. First-and second-place Canadian winning teams will each receive Canada Bonds of comparable issue price respectively (based on current exchange rate at time of purchase). All eight finalist teams, along with their coaches and families, will be invited to attend the ExploraVision Gala Awards Weekend in Washington, DC in June.


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