BHS STEM Academy junior, Mary Butler, has earned the top award in Maine’s Stockholm Junior Water Prize and will represent Maine at the 2014 U.S. National SJWP Competition in Herndon, Virginia in June. The top research project among the 51 state entries will earn the right to compete at the International SJWP competition in Stockholm, Sweden in August.

Sponsored by the Water Environment Foundation of Alexandria, VA, the U.S. Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition is the world’s most prestigious water-science competition for high school students. Mary’s research focuses on the development and production of a low-cost water filter to benefit world-wide water quality and health, with inspiration coming from people in the country of Haiti.

The Maine competition is sponsored by the New England Water Environment Association (NEWEA) and includes selection and participation funding for the state winner. According to NEWEA, their sponsorship of the SJWP “taps into the unlimited potential of today’s high school students as they seek to address current and future water challenges.”

BHS students have a long history of success at the SJWP state, national, and international levels, including back-to-back national winners in 2010 and 2011.