KAPAAU >> Four Hawaii island students are in Washington, D.C. today to be honored for being middle school winners in a national science fair.

The Kohala Middle School students saw no local ways to properly dispose of batteries and predicted that if they gave people the ability to recycle batteries they could collect 60,000 batteries in 60 days.

Using community events and social media, the students met their goal and became winners in the "Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge."

Competition organizers say Genevieve Boyle, Rico Bowman, Mina Apostadiro and Isabel Steinhoff were honored at the White House today, where they shared their project.