Franklin Students Win $110,000 Prize for L.A. River Project

Having earned more than 70,000 votes for a video depicting their study of Los Angeles River pollution, the Benjamin Franklin High School's AP environmental science class on Monday learned they've won a $110,000 technology package through Samsung's "Solve for Tomorrow" competition.

"Franklin High School had a fantastic video about the cleanup of the L.A. river, and that's earned them the grand prize in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest, for which they'll earn 100,000 in Samsung technology for their school," said David Steel, executive vice president of corporate strategy for Samsung.

The environmental had already won $40,000 in technology supplies for their L.A. River project, and were one of 15 finalists vying for Samsung's grand prize.

Franklin science teacher Jomel Villamil thanked the community for their strong show of support in the competition.

"It feels great to best over 1,600 schools across the nation. We just made history," Villamil told Patch. "I also feel so proud of our community for coming together and helping us win. I think this is the largest prize and highest national recognition our school has received to date. Words cannot express my sincerest gratitude to everyone."

An award ceremony will be held for Franklin on April 16-17 in Washington D.C.

Franklin's recognition is their reward for a study that took about a 110 hours to complete, Villamil said.

"The project showed how classroom curriculum can connect with the real-world. That the world is an even bigger classroom. Students got to explore their environment (some don't even know that the concrete flood channel is the LA River)," Villamil said. "Students learned various lab skills as they performed various water quality tests. They also carefully collected data, applied critical thinking skills as they analyzed their data, made inferences and came to a conclusion. Moreover, the students came up with creative, workable solutions. Needless to say, they worked collaboratively and learned to work as a team. And yes, everyone is now an environmental sustainability advocate."

Update: An earlier version of this story referred to Franklin's environmental club, it's actually the AP environmental science class.