Best For Last - 1st Place, Group Projects

Harshita Anandabarathi, Suki Elanjchezhiyan, Sarayu Maddala, Metea Valley HS

Our project rescues surplus food from local restaurants and redistributes it to food-insecure communities, transforming potential waste into nutritious meals. We coordinate efficient logistics and volunteer efforts to ensure the safe collection and delivery of food, reducing environmental impact while supporting those in need. This initiative provides a scalable model for sustainability and community engagement, making a measurable difference with every event.

Martian Madness - 1st Place, Individual Projects

Bavya Chowdavarapu, Neuqua Valley HS

This classroom game teaches middle school students about the impact of climate change, corporate responsibility, and sustainable practices. Players must balance resources like water, oil, and trees, learning that collaboration is key to success. The game, inspired by Monopoly and Settlers of Catan, includes free downloadable PDFs, lesson plans, and discussion questions, making it accessible for educators to use in teaching environmental responsibility.

Microbial Fuel Cell - 2nd Place, Group Projects

Aadarsh Sivaraman, Naga Mudda, Kirithik Senthilkumar, 

This project explores how electrogenic bacteria can generate electricity through their natural metabolic processes. With materials and a prototype design already in place, the next step is building a working model. Looking ahead, we aim to expand the system using plastic-eating bacteria tackling both energy generation and plastic waste reduction in one innovative solution.

Youth Climate Summit - 2nd Place, Individual Projects

Andrea Ramirez, Neuqua Valley HS

The Youth Climate Summit aims to educate, inspire, and mobilize youth on climate change and environmental sustainability. This includes organizing a one-day summit for 200 high school students from Chicago, securing funding through grants, donations, and fundraising, and ensuring diverse representation particularly from marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards.

AirAware - Runner Up, Group Projects

Muthamizh Arrasu Kamaraj, Parry Nall, 

Ajay Teja Kavuri, Arun Muthukkumar

(Metea Valley HS + ISMA)

AirAware is designed to address the limitations of current air quality monitoring systems by integrating hyperspectral imaging with a community-driven data platform. The project aims to provide high-resolution, real-time data on PM2.5 levels through an interactive, publicly available website. By visualizing pollution data in an intuitive format, AirAware will empower users and local stakeholders to identify pollution hotspots, make informed choices about their daily activities, and better understand the impact of air quality on their health. The project integrates cutting-edge imaging technology with community engagement to provide a scalable and equitable solution for urban air quality monitoring.

Sustainix - Runner Up, Individual Projects

Rakshita Ruparel, Naperville North HS

Many businesses recognize the need for sustainability but struggle with where to begin. Sustainix bridges that gap with a user-friendly online platform that helps companies identify and reduce their carbon footprint. It provides practical strategies for managing water consumption, improving waste management, and sourcing sustainable products. Our mission is to make sustainability accessible, turning intention into action and helping businesses create a lasting positive impact on the planet.

Sustainable Alternatives for Modern Lawn Grass - Group Project

Claire An, Alaa Chowdhury,

Julian Ruvalcaba, Dylan Preston,

Romeoville HS

We will begin by growing microclover and lawn grass (grown from seed) and carpet moss (grown from a pre-grown plant). We will grow three 6 inch pots of each plant. One sample will be grown in normal conditions (receiving 100% annual rainfall per week and 12 hours of sunlight) as a control without extra nutrients. The second sample will receive 2/3's of everything (66% annual rainfall per week and 8 hours of sunlight). The third group will receive 1/3 of everything (33% of the annual rainfall per week and 4 hours of sunlight). Humidity, distance to light source, type of water, and days in which we water, will all be consistent amongst the control and experimental groups. We will record observations in growth and appearance/health of each plant and expect the results show which plant is the most robust to non ideal conditions.

Smart Cooler - Group Project

Keshav Arun, Gyan Shetty, Granth Shetty, Waubonsie Valley HS

This project features a solar-powered, Arduino-controlled water cooling system designed to function like a smart thermostat. Using principles of evaporative cooling, the system automatically adjusts to reduce surrounding temperatures.

EcoRaft - Group Projects

Lukas Keane, Parik Puranam, Naperville North HS

EcoRaft is a floating barrier system that traps plastic waste in water and uses plastic-eating bacteria to break it down into safe byproducts. This eco-friendly approach stops pollution before it spreads and harnesses nature to help clean our waterways.

The SmokeSmart Disposal System - Group Project

John Manavalan, Harshad Maganuru, Metea Valley HS

Cigarette litter is a growing environmental threat to communities around Illinois. Although ashtrays and trash cans were still properly used by these smokers, these containers often started overflowing with cigarettes with no one to clean them up. This is why we created the SmokeSmart Disposal system, which is a cigarette disposal device that makes it easy for smokers to dispose of their used cigarettes and for garbage collectors to maintain and clean waste. Furthermore, our device has been designed to prevent the vapors of used cigarettes from polluting the Earth.

Chicagoland's Eco Voyager - Individual Projects

Jimena Argueta, Waubonsie Valley HS

Chicagoland's Eco-voyager, is all about taking a sustainable approach to tourism when traveling, being an app that has all the information that you need in one convenient place. The app itself will contain information on businesses, restaurants, transportation, activities, where to stay, and more, which have been filtered to fit a certain criteria for sustainability. The goal is to make sustainable tourism as convenient, yet, impactful as possible, especially in urban settings where it may be harder to incorporate on the individual level, without the help and knowledge. With a project such as this app, that starts based in the Chicago area, and hopefully expands to other cities, I hope that users are able to feel a greater sense of purpose when choosing alternatives that decrease their carbon footprint, and that they take that motivation to continue the fight against climate change, in all areas.

Students for Sustainable AI - Individual Projects

Greeshma Gavarasana, Metea Valley HS

This project educates high school students about the hidden environmental costs of artificial intelligence (AI). Through interactive school presentations, it raises awareness and empowers students to advocate for more sustainable tech practices.

CellMore  - Individual Projects

Vishnu Vijay, IMSA

CellMore uses a sustainable method to convert food waste into biodegradable plastic. It uses a complex extraction technique to extract cellulose from food waste, which can then be used to create a plastic alternative that can be directly substituted for typical plastic. Using our method, we can eliminate food waste and plastic waste as problems in the world, leading to a better, cleaner environment.

EcoSnap! - Individual Projects

Tanya Mehreen Asif Iqbal, Metea Valley HS

This project aims to improve recycling habits by solving a common issue figuring out which bin to use. We've all faced that moment of uncertainty, only to give up and toss an item into the wrong bin. Multiply that by billions, and the impact adds up. Using real data and a user-friendly app, this project helps people know exactly how and what to recycle, while exploring the bigger questions: How much do we actually recycle? And how much of what we try to recycle really gets processed?

Slow Fashion - Individual Projects

Amelia Sumatra, Waubonsie Valley HS

"11.3 million tons of MSW (municial solid waste) textiles" end up in landills every year (epa.gov). This is an enormous issue that "Slow Fashion" will help solve through community-based events called Repair Fairs. At the Fairs, consumers will be reminded of the dangers of fast fashion's overconsumption problem while being taught sustainable habits such as mending and thrifting clothing instead of throwing it away and buying it new. Overall, "Slow Fashion" hopes to spread both awareness about the increasing amount of yearly textile waste and provide tangible solutions to aid in reducing the number of items in landfills.

Rhizomes Restore - Individual Projects

Tai Nghiem, Naperville Central HS

Rhizomes Restore is a system that will help heal and restore eroded and flood-prone soils to allow for native plants to flourish, and allow for an improvement in water quality and environmental sustainability with the introduction of native vegetation.

Transform Water Bottles - Individual Projects

Sejal Gore, Metea Valley HS

This project turns recycled plastic bottles into 3D printer filament using a DIY setup at home. The filament will be donated to local libraries, where kids can join hands-on 3D printing events learning tech skills while giving plastic a second life.