I WISH is an annual STEM conference in Ireland with a goal of promoting women in STEM careers. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math and it is used to describe jobs in these fields.

Because of the pandemic, I WISH has started a twinning program to pair Irish and American schools.

Last year, because of the pandemic, this program decided to go international, and start a program to connect schools in Ireland and America.

This year Riordan was chosen to be paired with Presentation Secondary School in Ballyphehane, Cork.

As a part of this program, female students worked together to make a presentation to the I WISH board on Feb. 2. The winning project, by the students at Owen J Roberts High school in Pennsylvania and Loreto Milford community school in Donegal, Ireland, was announced at the conference on Feb. 10.

Other cities in the program are Philadelphia, paired with Donegal, Chicago paired with Limerick, and New York City paired with Dublin. Due to COVID, Chicago and New York had to pull out and wait until next year.

The project students worked on is called “The World Through Our Eyes,” where the students from each school were tasked with taking pictures and videos of the world around them.

Stephanie Lee, a science teacher at Archbishop Riordan and adviser to the group, said, “I WISH is a great program designed to expose young women to careers in STEM. There is a considerably large gap of women represented in STEM, so this program provides insight and role models for the young women.”