The fourth annual Montrose Economic Development Council (MEDC) Manufacturer’s Expo took place Thursday, October 28, 2021 at the Montrose Pavilion Event Center. Nine programs from Montrose High School had booths at the event, including Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Engineering, Work-Based Learning (WBL)/ Career Opportunity Studies (COS), Geek Squad, PLTW Biomedical Innovations, PLTW Computer Science, Living with Math, Livestream, Catering, and Knowledge Bowl.

Students and teachers involved in the event had the opportunity to set up a booth showcasing their STEM programs to the public.

“We recently got more freedom with what we can livestream — now we can stream soccer and softball — so we wanted to show that,” Junior Yasmin Cornejo Martin of Livestream said. “There were a couple of people that didn’t even know about the livestream, so it was fun to tell them about it, and I know they said it was useful to them.”

The event was open to middle schoolers and students from PEAK Virtual Academy in the morning before it opened up to business owners and the general public. This allowed incoming MHS students to see some of the programs available to them.

“It’s really nice to be here because the middle schoolers come in, and this year we had horrible numbers for this class because kids didn’t know they could join in,” senior Dane McCoid of PLTW Biomedical Innovations said. “A lot of biology students didn’t realize that it was a class and would have loved to be in that class, and since it’s a four year program you need to attend all four years in all four years of high school.”

The event not only provided an opportunity for future high school students to explore their options at MHS, but for current high schoolers to begin thinking about their options in the industry.

“I think it’s important for us to participate in these so that we can work with industry, for them to see what we’re doing, and for our students to see what opportunities they have in the future,” Biomedical Science teacher Emarae Garcia said. “They can see the track in which our students are progressing through for them to potentially get an internship, scholarship, or job here in Montrose.”