
Piedmont Regional Science Fair Judge Volunteering
March 03, 2020
On March 3, 2020 a team of 5 from CMA
Spartanburg joined the Rotary Club of Spartanburg, several area colleges and
businesses, and the University of South Carolina Upstate to insure the success
of the Annual Piedmont Regional Science Fair. The collaborative event serves the
South Carolina counties of Chester, Cherokee, Lancaster, Spartanburg, Union and
York students from public, private, and home schools. The event displays the
work of around 800 young minds. The event organizers tasked CMA employees with
judging hundreds of elementary and middle school projects based in behavioral
and social science, biology, chemistry, physics, general science, math, and computer
science. The high school students even got the opportunity to explain their
creations.
This gave us a unique opportunity to
interact socially with the future scientific talent in the area. The winner of the Piedmont Region III Science
Fair will go on to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering
Fair (ISEF), which is the world’s largest international pre-college science
competition, providing an annual forum for more than 1,700 high school students
from over 70 countries.
Our plant began production in July of 2019 so we are still considered new in this area. While this is only the second year CMA has participated in the event, the volunteers greeted us with; “weren’t you here last year,” and “oh you work for Toray, right?” Showing that we are becoming part of the community!