Carbometer wins Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 12th District

Rep. Nancy Pelosi has named Ryan Lee, Jessica Hu, Noella Lee, and Lexian Nguyen of Lowell High School as the winners of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 12th District.

When asked what inspired the creation of Carbometer, the students said, “We believe that climate change is one of the most pressing and relevant issues of our generation that needs to be addressed. Though most of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans is released by large corporations, each individual can still take steps and make choices to reduce emissions. Especially in California, we see firsthand the effects of climate change and global warming: wildfires, less rainfall, and rising temperatures. The long-term effects of climate change will be experienced by our generation, prompting us to take steps, creating our app among them, to actively mitigate climate change. By raising awareness of the gravity of the situation through quantifying their carbon emissions, we hope to give them the opportunity to change their habits and inspire action. The drastic effects of climate change linger in both the near future and our minds. Concerned with the state and uncertainty of our environment, species growing extinct, uninhabitable areas, and extreme weather events, we want to ensure that our generation and those following get to experience the natural wonders of our Earth. If we take action now, we might be able to prevent and undo damage to the Earth caused by anthropogenic climate change.”

The 2021 Congressional App Challenge yielded 2,101 fully functioning apps. After eighteen months of disruptions to educational cadences for students everywhere, the Congressional App Challenge came roaring back with 7,174 students registering for this year’s competition. All told, 340 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C.

The Congressional App Challenge is an official initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host contests in their districts for middle school and high school students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and each winning team is invited to showcase their winning app to Congress during our annual #HouseOfCode festival. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from Omidyar Network, AWS, theCoderSchool, Facebook, Replit, Accenture, and others.

The 2022 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2022, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.