{"id":50495,"date":"2022-05-30T10:28:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T14:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50495"},"modified":"2022-05-30T10:28:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T14:28:57","slug":"local-schools-win-in-governors-pa-stem-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50495","title":{"rendered":"Local schools win in Governor\u2019s PA STEM Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Every year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) hosts the Governor\u2019s PA STEM Competition, an event that gives students in grades 9-12 the opportunity to test their creativity and inventiveness. The Governor\u2019s PA STEM Competition is held on behalf of Governor Wolf to enhance STEM learning. The competition has been running for nine years and typically consists of regional and state levels. For the last three years, students bypassed the regional level and went directly to the state level.<\/p>\n

In the first seven years of the competition, each intermediate unit was only able to send the winning team of their regional competition. The online format of the past two years has allowed more students to display their skills in research and design in the competition. <\/p>\n

In April of 2022, the virtual competition\u2019s theme was: \u201cImproving Pennsylvania Through STEM.\u201d Teams of students were tasked with designing a device or project that would solve real-world problems in Pennsylvania. To facilitate this, teams each received $600 to make a prototype of their projects.<\/p>\n

The competition was split up into two divisions. Division 1 was made up of students who have participated in the competition within the last 5 years, while division 2 consisted of new participants. The top spots recognized in each division included: grand champion, 1st<\/sup> runner up, 2nd<\/sup> runner up and 3rd<\/sup> runner up.<\/p>\n

Four Chester County school districts held top spots in the competition out of 54 competing teams. In division 1, Bishop Shanahan High School was crowned grand champion, with Conestoga High School finishing as 2nd<\/sup> runner-up. In division 2, Downingtown STEM Academy earned grand champion, with Technical College High School (TCHS) Pennock\u2019s Bridge Campus finishing as 2nd<\/sup> runner-up.<\/p>\n

Dr. John Janasik, a teacher from Bishop Shanahan High School, has served as the advisor for the school\u2019s team for nine years. \u201cThis is our second grand championship; we also won the last in-person competition in 2019,\u201d said Dr. Janasik. \u201cIt has been an excellent experience for our students. They not only become involved in developing\u00a0something they can be proud of, but more importantly, they form strong friendships with their teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catherine Dignazio, the advisor for the TCHS Pennock\u2019s Bridge team, guided her group of students through their first ever competition. \u201cThe most memorable part for me was having the opportunity to coach some awesome students. I would give them a few suggestions and they would run with it. It was awe-inspiring for me. The team brainstormed solutions to problems that would help improve the lives of PA citizens.\u00a0 After a few brainstorming sessions, the team decided that this was a project that would help others and it was a prototype that they felt they could design and create, said Dignazio<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) hosts the Governor\u2019s PA STEM Competition, an event that gives students in grades 9-12 the opportunity to test their creativity and inventiveness. The Governor\u2019s PA STEM Competition is held on behalf of Governor Wolf to enhance STEM learning. The competition has been running for nine years and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3144,887,14543,14542],"class_list":["post-50495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-bishop-shanahan","tag-conestoga","tag-downingtown-stem-academy","tag-governors-pa-stem-competition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50496,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50495\/revisions\/50496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}