The What’s Cool about Manufacturing awards were recently announced. This year, the contests in Pennsylvania included 155 middle school teams from 11 regional programs: Berks Schuylkill, Central Susquehanna, Chester Delaware, Lehigh Valley, North Central, Northern Tier, Philadelphia Region, Pittsburgh Central, Pittsburgh East, South Central, and Southern Alleghenies. The annual contests excite students to explore cool manufacturing careers and produce profiles of companies throughout Pennsylvania.

Created by the Manufacturers Resource Center in Allentown in 2013, the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? contest for the Lehigh Valley for this year featured teams from school districts in Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, and Carbon counties and the Diocese of Allentown.

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. The contest’s objective is to change students’ perceptions about manufacturing careers. Judges in each regional contest bestow a variety of awards, and each contest features an online vote at WhatsSoCool.org for its Viewers’ Choice Award.

The Bethlehem Area School District teams received three awards. All four BASD middle schools (Broughal, East Hills, Nitschmann, and Northeast) entered teams in the competition.

Broughgal MS’s team won the Outstanding Editing award.

The team from East Hills MS took the Outstanding Cool award for their video.

Northeast MS’s team won the Outstanding Career Pathway award.

The student teams and their coordinators were recognized at the May 20 meeting of the Bethlehem Area School Board.