OIL CITY, Pa. (EYT) — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today announced that a team of students from the Meadville Area Senior High School has been selected as the PennDOT District 1 winner for its inaugural Innovations Challenge.

Mentored by Jill Hyatt, team members include: Pallas Athena Cain, Alexis Holt, Elizabeth Grove, and Saskia Jager.

Since last fall, students have been working hard to solve this year’s challenge, which asked students to look at technologies and innovative methods, aside from traditional paid advertising, marketing and social media channels, that can be developed in the next five to 10 years to curb unsafe teen driving practices.

“PennDOT is committed to promoting safe driving practices through traditional media, such as radio, newspaper, television and social media,” said PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards. “With this year’s Innovations Challenge, we wanted students to look at non-traditional methods to foster more innovative approaches to address this issue.”

The winning regional team’s innovation was Penn Points, an app geared toward teens and designed to reward safe driving behaviors by providing coupons for local businesses.

Launched this year, the PennDOT Innovations Challenge is a statewide competition that challenges teams of students in ninth through 11th grade to use their problem-solving, creative and strategic-thinking abilities to solve a specific real-world transportation challenge.

“We were very pleased with the idea and presentation put forth by the Meadville Area Senior High School team, as well as the other schools who participated in the Innovation Challenge,” said Michael J. Shanshala, III, P.E., Acting District Executive for PennDOT District 1. “The students showed creativity, ingenuity, and initiative through the development of their ideas to help PennDOT encourage safety among our motorists.”

Other schools represented at the regional competition were Eisenhower High School and the Mercer County Career Center.

The Meadville Area Senior High School will join regional winners to compete in the statewide Innovation Challenge competition on April 24 in Harrisburg. Teams will present their solution to this year’s challenge to Secretary Richards and a panel of PennDOT judges and a statewide winner will be selected.