Northampton Area Middle School won the Viewers Choice Award and Southern Lehigh Middle School took home the top judges’ award Tuesday night during closing ceremonies of the Lehigh Valley’s second annual What So Cool About Manufacturing? video contest.
Created by the Manufacturers Resource Center (MRC) in Allentown, PA, the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? contest excites students to explore manufacturing careers and produce profiles of companies. The teams of students and teacher coaches receive camera equipment, software, and professional guidance as they learn to script, record, and edit their video stories. PBS39 Lehigh Valley furnished extensive technical support for each team. Judges bestow a variety of awards and fans vote online for its Viewers Choice Award. The contest’s objective is to change students’ perceptions about manufacturing careers.
The contest has been received so well that communities inside and outside of Pennsylvania are holding similar contests or plan to hold contests. Funds to develop the contest were provided in 2013 by the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development’s “Discovered in PA, Developed in PA” program for a project called Lehigh Valley Skill-Up.
This year’s Lehigh Valley contest was presented by the MRC and the Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board (LVWIB) and included entries from 22 teams from Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon counties. Northampton won the Viewers Choice Award for its profile of Effort Foundry. More than 100,000 online votes were casts for the second straight year. Southern Lehigh earned the judges’ Outstanding Program Award for overall excellence with its profile of Crayola.
More than 600 people attended Tuesday night’s awards ceremony at the ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem, PA.
Additional contest awards include the following:
- Outstanding Editing: Nazareth Area Middle School for its profile of ABEC
- Outstanding Creativity: Raub Middle School in Allentown, PA, for its profile of Stanley Vidmar
- Outstanding Cool: Northampton Area Middle School for its profile of Effort Foundry
- Outstanding Videography: Northeast Middle School in Bethlehem, PA, for its profile of Strahman Valves
- Outstanding Educational Value: East Penn School District for its profile of Nestlé Waters North America
Contest support also was provided by the Lehigh Career & Technical Institute (LCTI); the Da Vinci Science Center; the Career Institute of Technology (CIT); the Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School (BAVTS); and the Carbon Career & Technical Institute (CCTI). Additional sponsorship was provided by Aerotek; The Equinox Agency; King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul LLC; and PPL Electric Utilities.
About the Manufacturers Resource Center
The Manufacturers Resource Center (MRC) is dedicated to creating jobs and economic opportunity in eastern Pennsylvania’s Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, and Schuylkill counties. MRC is a nonprofit organization partially funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s NIST-MEP program, as well as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development.
News Story Contact
Karen Buck, Manufacturers Resource Center
Allentown, PA, 610.628.4626