The Northwest Contest of What’s So Cool About Manufacturing (WSCM) for middle schools in Erie and Crawford Counties is off and running. WSCM is a student video contest with the goal to create awareness within the schools and the community about cool manufacturing careers through the eyes of 7th and 8th grade students. The team, guided by their Teacher Coach, conducts research, films at the company, and edits their video for final submission to be eligible for several award categories, including Viewer’s Choice selected by online voting. The program started with Teacher Coach training the first week of October and culminates with a 3-day online voting period for school videos (March 11-13, 2019), judging for other award categories, and an Awards Gala on March 21, 2019.
Participating Schools and their Feature Manufacturer include:
Cochranton Jr/Sr High School (Channellock)
Conneaut Lake Middle School (Pennco Tool & Die)
Corry Area Middle School (Corry Manufacturing Company)
Erie First Christian Academy (Essentra)
Fairview Middle School (Beaumont Technologies)
Fort LeBoeuf Middle School (LORD Corporation)
Harbor Creek Junior High School (Contine Corporation)
Iroquois Jr/Sr High School (McInnes Rolled Rings)
JS Wilson Middle School (Finish Thompson)
Maplewood Jr/Sr High School (Mecal by Starn)
Meadville Area Middle School (Acutec Precision Aerospace)
North East Middle School (Electric Materials)
RB Wiley Charter School (Onex, Inc.)
Rice Avenue Middle School (American Turned Products)
Saegertown Jr/Sr High School (Greenleaf Corporation)
Union City Area Middle School (All-American Hose)
Walnut Creek Middle School (GeorgeKo Industries)
Wattsburg Area Middle School (Rehrig Pacific Company)
Westlake Middle School (Micro Mold & Plastikos)
Wilson Middle School (Modern Industries)
For some background, during this past school year across Pennsylvania, there were 12 contests with 174 middle school teams paired with 174 manufacturers and generated over 600,000 online votes to select Viewer’s Choice Award winners. You can see student videos from last year’s contests, including our Northwest contest at: www.whatssocool.org.
The Northwest Contest (Erie County only) last year had 12 schools paired with 12 manufacturers, nearly 40,000 online votes, and 400 attended the awards event.
Northwest Industrial Resource Center (NWIRC) is producing the program again this year and could not do it without support of numerous community partners and program sponsors, including: Erie Community Foundation, WQLN, Career Street, NWPA Job Connect, Crawford County K-12 Career Education Alliance, NWPA-NTMA, Erie County Technical School, Precision Manufacturing Institute, Crawford County Career & Technical Center, Haines Printing, Edinboro University, Northwest Bank and McGill Power Bell.
The community is encouraged to follow the journey of these student teams on Facebook and Twitter (@WSCMNW)!