2018 NETA Awards - Engaged Learning
From: PBS39
Project Budget: $57,000
Seven years ago, PBS39 was approached by the Manufacturers Resource Center of the Lehigh Valley to assist in creating a video contest for middle school children centered around manufacturing career awareness. PBS39 looked at the contest through the lens of educationand decided to build curriculum around the contest and make it both about career awareness and digital storytelling. The outcome was a contest that is a project-based learning curriculum, designed to bring 21st century manufacturing career awareness to middle-school students *and* teach them digital storytelling.The contest was launched in the 2012-2013 school year and five years later it has grown to include twelve regions in Pennsylvania. PBS39 provides student-team assessments and/or teacher training to eight of the twelve regions: individual feedback to 108 middle school teams at three key assessment points in the video creation, using audio/video capturingsoftware that allows students to receive detailed instruction to help improve their storytelling andvideo production quality.This contest is unique for middle-school students, and for focusing other career paths that are available to students beyond the typical college degree.
What Did the Judges Say?
The contest is a great idea and the winning video is totally awesome! The growth of interest and the quality of the story production by the middle school students is very impressive.The partnership with Industrial Resource Centers from throughout Pennsylvania is a very strong out-of-the-box collaboration and all parties benefited.
This contest is very effective in building knowledge and skills of the student teams. The number of schools and manufacturers involved was amazing. I think every station should steal this idea.