Elida eighth-grader Willow Shaner practices drawing blood using a replica arm in Elida Middle School’s new career exploration lab.
ELIDA — Students draw blood from replica arms, design keychains from 3D printers and produce videos in front of the greenscreen inside Elida Middle School’s new career exploration lab.
The immersive course is available for seventh and eighth-grade students, who rotate through 16 stations designed to imitate popular careers like emergency medicine, welding, cosmetology and drone technology.
Each station begins with research, after which students experience as close to a day-in-the-life of their subject as is possible in a middle school classroom.
They design and build phone stands from scratch: cutting, drilling and gluing pieces of plywood together to form a stand fit just for their phone.
They measure their fingers to design a custom ring, calculating their size and inputting their measurements for the 3D printer.
They set splints and apply makeup, just like they would if they pursued a career in sports medicine or cosmetology.
Students at once learn what they enjoy — and rule out career paths they previously considered.
“All my athletes think they want to be a trainer until we start taking socks off,” said Mitch Monfort, who teaches the new course, which launched this year.
“We’re taping ankles and broken toes. … They’re like, ‘I want to go watch sports,’ but you’re working. You’re running from job site to job site.”
Career exploration labs and hands-on career technical programs are increasingly popular as the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce pushes schools to incorporate career pathways and workplace readiness in the curriculum.
ODEW awarded Bath schools $2 million in grant funding in March to expand the district’s career technical programming, including a new college and career readiness lab the high school opened this week.
Perry schools earmarked funding for a similar program, which is in the planning stages.
Wapakoneta High School started a makerspace where students can practice using 3D printers and modeling software last year.
And Lima schools is in the early stages of introducing a new career pathways lab for middle school students. The district already operates its own career technical school, complete with a recording studio, welding lab, car garage and student-run restaurant, which received a 4.5-star rating on its latest state report card.
Elida’s career exploration lab replaces the middle school’s character and leadership class, during which students took interest inventories and researched careers.
Principal Doug Drury said the school wanted to offer students a more in-depth, experiential course to prepare them to choose a career pathway in high school, so students know early on whether they’ll need to pursue a college degree or technical certification.
“They’re not just reading about (jobs),” Drury said. “We understand they’re not going to come out trained to be able to build bridges or be a welder, but it gives them an idea of what those jobs entail.”
