ERIE — National Manufacturing Day is held each October to celebrate modern manufacturing and inspire the next generation. Here, in Northwest Pennsylvania, MFG Day is set for October 14 (see mbausa.org for details).
In addition, many organizations also celebrate October as Manufacturing Month. The NWIRC (Northwest Industrial Resource Center), several sponsors and community partners have launched a career exploration program to run throughout October to celebrate Manufacturing Month for students in grades 6-12 within 14 counties of northwest and north central PA.
Teachers can use the activity as a class project or students can participate on their own. The program includes writing a brief article about “how manufacturing has touched your life” and answering a few questions on a lesson plan worksheet after watching three (3) short What’s So Cool About Manufacturing videos (found at WhatsSoCool.org) previously created by middle school students about companies in their own backyard.
Students submit their entry via an online portal to be entered into a random drawing for some awesome prizes from October 1-31, 2020. Program sponsors include: Edinboro University, Northwest Bank, NWIRC, NWPA-NTMA, NEFF, and ABB. Other regional partners include: Northwest Tri-County Intermediate Unit (IU5), Riverview Intermediate Unit (IU6), Workforce Solutions, NWPA JobConnect, West Central Job Partnership, Career Street, Crawford County K-12 Career Education Alliance, and Steel Valley Authority.
All of the materials and the online portal for submissions can be found at: www.nwirc.org/mfgmonth.
