The Lexus Eco Challenge- Inspiring young students to make a difference.

It makes sense that Lexus, a company known for leaning into the future, should focus its corporate charitable activities on children who are the future of our communities, our country and our world.

Of the many programs Lexus supports, it is especially proud to sponsor the Lexus Eco Challenge, a nationwide contest designed to inspire middle- and high-school students to solve real world problems with environmentally friendly solutions.

The Eco Challenge is a natural extension for Lexus where the boundaries of environmentally friendly technology are constantly expanded and applied to automotive design, production and performance. Its corporate partner, Scholastic, is the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books and a leader in educational technology and children’s media.

Each September, the Lexus Eco Challenge kicks off with teams of students, working under the guidance of their teachers, developing eco-themed projects in categories such as Land/Water and Air/Climate. Students are competing for a chance to win part of $500,000 in scholarships and grants. In spring 2012, semi-finalist teams go head-to-head in a final contest to select a grand prize-winning team.

In 2010, the Eco Challenge winning team built a solar-powered biodiesel production system for a Haitian school.

Other winning entries included a team of students from Wisconsin who created lesson plans on green energy practices, partnered with local businesses and filmed a documentary about their work. In addition, the team submitted a grant proposal to a local electric utility to acquire more solar panels and establish a scholarship for another school to work on a similar eco-responsible project.

A high school team of more than 40 students from California studied global organic and inorganic contamination in lobsters. With help from California State University Long Beach, the team’s research resulted in 30 Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps for each of the contaminants present in the lobster samples with results being published in California Diving News.

An Eco Challenge team from New York focused on the problems associated with carbon emissions and global warming, creating holiday gifts from recycled materials and launching a community-wide recycling program.

To learn more about how Lexus is inspiring young students to make a difference by coming together to help solve the problems of today and tomorrow, visit the Lexus Eco Challenge website at www.scholastic.com/lexus/.>