READING, Pa. - Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, as both the education and business communities continue to struggle, those at Albright College in Reading and the Berks County Intermediate Unit faced another issue.
"We knew with the pandemic, our mission is to bring equitable access to career readiness information and experiences to the students in Berks County, and we knew with COVID, our students weren't gonna be able to go out to businesses," said Stacy Dunleavy, program administrator for the BCIU's Career Ready Berks.
So, Albright College jumped on board to create the Solve-It Berks career ready program, which will serve as a substitute for students going out on internships and bring nearly 1,000 5th- through 12-grade students Zoom meetings with industry professionals.
"They're gonna choose problems that they hear these industry professionals talk about," explained Adelle Schade, who created the program with Albright College, "and their gonna create solutions back for those professionals and businesses."
The program itself is centered around problem-solving, and that's what those at Albright were essentially doing when they created the program itself.
"That's what we've done for six years now through our summer and after-school programming is we've had kids solve problems," Schade said.
Zoom speakers will include a project manager for Walt Disney World's Star Wars exhibit in Florida, NASA and scientists from Germany. It's expected to start Sept. 21.
