JACKSON TWP — STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is gaining in popularity, but educators are looking for ways to get students more interested in these subjects.

To help, the You Be the Chemist challenge was Saturday morning at the Seneca Valley Middle School. About 22 students from Seneca Valley, Evans City and Mars middle schools participated.

“It's getting them interested in chemistry,” said Julie Smith, the Seneca Valley teacher who sponsored the event.

It has been held for about half a decade at Seneca Valley, and is sponsored by BASF and the Chemical Education Foundation. There were seven rounds of questions, all about chemistry.

The top four students from the event will go to the regional events in State College in April. Winners from that event will go on to a national event in Philadelphia. You Be the Chemist challenges are held in 25 states.

The second through fourth place winners, all from Seneca Valley Middle School, were Scott McElhinny, Adam Corrigan and Dean Smith, respectively.

To make it to the event, students had to pass a qualifying examination. Last year, Smith said about 25 students participated in the qualifying exam. This year, 50 did. Eight students from Seneca Valley ended up at the event.

“We've gotten more and more kids interested in it,” Smith said.

Julia Lingenfelter, a fifth grader at Evans City Middle School, said that the qualifying exam was moderate.

“Some of them were very easy, but some of them were hard,” Lingenfelter said of the questions.

She said she would like to be a neurologist when she gets older.

Part of the reason she was interested in participating in the event was that her brother, Andrew Lingenfelter, participated years ago and became a national champion.

Andrew, now 17, went to nationals in 2011. Saturday morning, he said it was cool to see his sister in the event.

“It's exciting to see her take the same interests that I have,” he said.

Jack Felice, a seventh grader at Mars Middle School, was in the event for the first time.

“I never really envisioned myself coming here,” Felice said.

However, he likes science and found the qualifying exam to be easy. He then started studying in haste for Saturday's event.

“I want to win,” Felice said.

His father, John Felice, said he was happy his son was there.

“My wife and I are really proud that he made the qualifier to compete today,” he said.

Jacob Herbolich, a seventh grader from Mars Middle School, said he is not interested in pursuing science as a career and decided to participate in the competition on a whim.

“I just walked into the test and took it,” Herbolich said.

Given this, he did not expect that he would do well enough to make it to Saturday's event.

“I was pretty surprised,” Herbolich said.

However, he said he was excited to compete.