HPHS Sci-Tech Fest Going Virtual

The 15th-annual Highland Park High School Sci-Tech Fest is going virtual. 

The festival will be Feb. 5 held via Google Meet and feature about 30 speakers from fields including healthcare, aerospace, engineering, and more. There will be a combination of pre-recorded videos or real-time virtual sessions.

Amy Shawver served as a festival co-chair and Valerie Dillon served as a co-chair elect for the event.

“We hope to ignite their passion for studying science and technology,” Shawnee said. “We hope that it gets them interested in it, and our goal is to have more students either in high school or if they continue into college hopefully go into those fields.

“We’re trying to increase the number of people going into those fields because it just has so much promise and opportunity, and we need more good students and, later on, adults going into science and technology to help keep improving the world.”

Dillon said she also hopes the event showcases the variety of fields out there for students to study.

“Our goal is to kind of present technology and science in a way that’s going to be interesting for the kids, and to kind of really speak to them and just show them that there are so many different variations that they could go into … show them different fields, and show them what’s out there and what’s available,” she said.

Shawver said the sessions will be recorded this year so they can be accessed in the future.

“Hopefully we’re in person next year, but still, even then, I think we would try to record some of the speakers and kind of build on that video library, so really create a legacy for Highland Park as far as science and technology that they’re going to be able to have forever,” Dillon added.

Organizers are still looking for volunteers. Those interested in volunteering can email hpscitechfest@gmail.com.