SPE Foundation reaches out to the next generation

In honor of the SPE 75th anniversary, the Society of Plastics Engineers Foundation has launched its Campaign for Plastics Education to support its mission of promoting the development of plastics professionals through the funding of quality educational initiatives, scholarships, grants and student experiences.

One major program funded by the foundation is PlastiVan, a traveling educational experience for students.

According to Eve Vitale, director of the SPE Foundation, the campaign goal is to raise $225,000 — $75,000 from corporations, $75,000 from SPE Sections and Divisions and $75,000 from individuals.

The SPE Foundation handles between 45 and 50 scholarships each year, worth approximately $110,000, as well as around 15 grants a year with a worth ranging between $50,000 and $75,000.

Vitale said the foundation is also focused this year on getting 3D printers into middle schools and high schools.

São Paolo-based Braskem, the United States' largest polypropylene producer and PlastiVan's lead corporate sponsor, has pledged a $30,000 donation to support the campaign. Vitale said Raj Krishnaswamy, Ph.D., director of innovation and technology at Braskem America, is "very passionate" about helping improve PlastiVan and expand it, "in hopes of being able to meet the demands."

"At Braskem, we believe in the functional value and the environmental benefits that plastics provide to humanity. We are also very active in fostering STEM-based education initiatives in all communities where we operate," Krishnaswamy said in an email.

"The PlastiVan program is an outstanding plastics education initiative that reaches out to a broad community," he continued. "The technical and engineering perspectives offered by PlastiVan encourage more students to pursue STEM-based education and careers. It is this shared belief in STEM education and the value proposition of plastics that prompted us to sponsor this activity."

The SPE Foundation's PlastiVan program, which started about 20 years ago, was created as a hands-on approach to educate and excite students about science and the plastics industry through experiments and topics that range from chemistry and history to manufacturing and sustainability. Available to middle school and high school students across the country, PlastiVan has served more than 40,000 students over the last two years in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois and Oklahoma.

The lab for middle school students introduces them to polymers and plastics, while the high school lab is a more advanced experience that includes career opportunities and college programs in plastics engineering.

Vitale said the cost for PlastiVan is $1,500 each day, which includes everything from presentation materials to traveling expenses for the outreach educators.

"Braskem has been a long-time ​ sponsor of those daily kinds of events," she said. "We were down at the Franklin Institute [science museum] in Philadelphia earlier this year, and they sponsored for us to be there. … They're interested in supporting it more because they realize how important this education is, just to get kids thinking about plastics in a way that's beneficial to our industry."

Vitale stressed that the foundation is looking for more outreach educators to go into the classrooms and expand the program's reach.

"It's a part-time position without benefits, so that makes it challenging. Hopefully, eventually, we can get full-time positions going," she said. "I have a really great educator in the Detroit market, and she handles almost all of that. Since I live here, I'm helping a little bit with that. I have an educator right now in the Oklahoma-Texas market. I'm looking for one in the Northeast. I'm looking for one in the Carolinas. I could use another one in the Midwest."

To be an outreach educator with PlastiVan, candidates must have a college degree, and previous knowledge of science and the plastics industry in a classroom setting are preferred. Educators prepare the materials for classroom demonstrations, schedule PlastiVan visits, maintain a positive public image for the plastics industry and the SPE and occasionally attend trade shows, among other tasks.

Anne Cowell, an outreach educator in the Oklahoma-Texas region, joined the team after reading about the program and speaking with Vitale. Cowell said she "learned the curriculum, practiced demonstrations and read up on plastics chemistry."

"I am teaching students about science in their everyday lives and sharing career opportunities that they may not have realized are available to them," Cowell said via email. "It is incredibly rewarding to see students consider these career paths and think more about the items they use in their everyday lives."

Cowell, who has a bachelor's degree in chemistry and master's degree in teaching, said her favorite part about being an outreach educator is the students.

"The students' energy is contagious as we work through hands-on investigations and they are so engaged in each experiment," she added. "I love watching their eyes light up as they work together, brainstorm what a material might be used for and other types of tests they could perform."

Phread Ayres, a seventh-grade science teacher who is in his 13th year at Schuyler-Colfax Middle School in Wayne, N.J., said he connected with PlastiVan through one of his students, whose mother was college roommates and friends with Marjorie Weiner, who previously ran the program. Ayres contacted Weiner, and PlastiVan has been presenting at the middle school every year for the last few years, he said.

"It is fabulous," Ayres said. "If any school can get the funding for it — I don't want to make Eve [Vitale] go crazy doing these things — but it is such a worthwhile presentation. … The 'wow' factor for the kids really hooks them into how cool science can be and, in this particular case, the chemical engineering of various plastics."

Three students from the Pennsylvania College of Technology, an affiliate of Pennsylvania State University, were invited in 2016 to work with PlastiVan at the SPE Thermoforming Conference in Illinois, where they spoke with students from local school districts and walked them through the convention center to directly talk with plastics companies, according to Shannon Munro, executive director of Workforce Development and Continuing Education at Penn College.

While at the conference, Munro said, the staff of Penn College's Plastics Innovation and Resource Center discussed with the SPE Foundation about bringing PlastiVan to the college for a week in February earlier this year.

"We've worked closely with Sekisui SPI, a plastics company from Bloomsburg, [Pa.], over the years, and they also saw the benefit of bringing the program to Penn College," Munro said in an emailed statement. "Having an employer invested in the success of the PlastiVan is critical to making it effective, and we are fortunate to have a company like Sekisui located near us."

Mentioning figures of 550 plastics firms employing more than 32,000 people in Pennsylvania alone, Munro said bringing an awareness to career opportunities in the industry is "vital to creating a continuous pool of employees for these companies and those across the globe."

"Plastics is not usually at the top of the list of career choices for students, largely because they are unaware of the opportunities or the array of potential career paths within the industry," Munro added. "The week the PlastiVan was at Penn College, more than 2,000 students were introduced to plastics. Without this program, we would have a difficult time reaching that many students in such a short time period."

Citing a Plastics News​ article that reported on the 2017 State of the Industry Report, Vitale said workforce development is the top challenge of executives.

"Our job at the SPE Foundation is to manage workforce development in a way," Vitale said. "It's really important for all of us to get behind this. … If we all work together, we're going to continue to increase students' interest in the plastics industry. That's really what we have to do to get them into the industry. I just think it's really important."