AMHERST — Speed and efficiency in searching for and rescuing those lost in remote locations increases survival rates, with success going down dramatically when such operations last more than a day, experts say.

Understanding that there may be ways to improve search and rescue operations, a group of students at Amherst Regional High School is embarking on finding a technological solution to a real-world problem as one of eight recipients nationwide for an invention grant from the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams program.

The high school was recently awarded a $7,500 InvenTeam grant to participate.

John Fabel, an engineering and physics teacher at the school, initiated the application process and worked with students to put together a final proposal submitted last summer.

Then, a panel of university professors, inventors, entrepreneurs, industry professionals and college students, including former InvenTeam members, selected the recipients.

As part of the work, the InvenTeam in Amherst will work with search and rescue experts, including Amherst Fire Chief Tim Nelson and Markian Stec, a specialist with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Mountain Team 1.

The Amherst students are in the midst of creating a monitoring system that will track the vital signs of those handling the search and rescue, record their locations and transmit this data back to a command center. When complete, this system is supposed to be integrated into an existing CalTopo mapping program developed for search and rescue teams.

Initially, the InvenTeam will develop its solution and build a working prototype that will be ready for a technical review in February. The final prototype will then be shown at EurekaFest, an invention celebration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge from June 10 to 12.

Leigh Estabrooks, Lemelson-MIT’s invention education officer, said in a statement statement that the inventions will focus on inequities in health and well-being, environmental issues, and safety concerns.

“These high school students are not just problem solvers of tomorrow, they are problem solvers today helping to make our world more equitable, healthier and safer,” Estabrooks said.

This is the 20th year of the initiative in which 17 teams of high school students, so far, have earned U.S. patents for their projects.

The program combines intellectual property education with invention education, and makes an effort to remedy historic inequities among those who develop inventions, protect their intellectual property, and commercialize their creations.

Jerome H. Lemelson, one of the most prolific inventors in American history, and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT Program in 1994.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.