United Way of Bucks County and Bucks County Intermediate Unit held their annual iSTEAMM Conference in May. To keep everyone safe from COVID-19, the event became a virtual conference.
iSTEAMM connects Bucks County seventh and eighth graders to mentors who work in science, technology, engineering, arts, math and manufacturing and is the biggest student conference in Bucks County. Over 300 students and educators attended the conference.
The conference this year was hosted by Miss America 2020 Camille Schrier – a Bucks County native who made history when she presented a chemistry demonstration as her talent during the Miss America competition. She is a biochemist pursuing a doctor of pharmacy degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. In addition to sharing live science demonstrations, Schrier talked about the importance of STEM education and answered questions submitted by students.
Every student that participated was entered into a raffle to win one of two prizes: $5,000 to put toward their school’s STEM education or a one-week residency of the Bucks IU’s Mobile Fab Lab at their school. These prizes were made possible by sponsors PECO, Comcast, Langan Engineering, Penn Community Bank, PPL Electric Utilities, Solvay, SUEZ Water Technologies & Solutions, and UGI Electric Utilities.
Winners of the raffle prizes were: Bristol Borough School District, which won the one-week residency of the Bucks IU’s Mobile Fab Lab; and Strayer Middle School in the Quakertown School District, which won $5,000 toward STEM education.
