HOT DEMONSTRATION — Agriculture and FFA teacher Chuck Cline gives John Gregg Elementary students a glimpse of the CNC plasma cutter at work during the first CTE Career Pathways Fair at Edison High School. -- Contributed

RICHMOND — Students learned about the possibilities for their future during Edison High School’s first-ever Career Pathways Fair.

On May 28 and 30, an estimated 300 pupils from Stanton and John Gregg Elementary and Edison Junior High met with students in the career-tech education pathways and participated in activities aligned with the subject. The career pathways fair was mobile as representatives led activities at Stanton Elementary that Tuesday, then hosted EJHS and John Gregg students at the high school on Thursday.

District Career Coach Leah Eft invited members of the CTE Workforce Council to view the festivities while high schoolers within each program led the presentations.

“It is to expose junior high students to the career pathways and careers in general,” Eft said. “This is the first year for the career fair and we have seven groups rotating to seven areas that include junior high students and sixth-graders. The goal is to do this in the future and have the workforce council help us.”

She explained that the career-tech pathways included interactive media, agriculture and trades, engineering, biomedical and healthcare, public services such as criminal justice to education, obtaining associate degrees and becoming job ready. Eft told students that they would receive cards as freshmen which indicate types of classes they should take during grades 9-12, adding that different jobs may require degrees or certifications.

She went on to explain facets of each pathway, such as informational technology (IT), web design and computer programming in interactive media. Eft noted there were alternate graduation paths such as the Wild Techs student tech leaders, who receive 10 credits and work the help desk by aiding teachers and students with their Chromebook issues. Another was agriculture and trades where students would learn about food, natural resources, physical science, plants and animals, business management or ag nutrition management, environmental science for natural resources, mechanical principles in the shop and have an ag and engineering capstone as well as alternate graduation paths, including a carpentry apprenticeship, HVAC robotics, introduction to engineering and engineering drone operations. The CTE biomedical course requires two classes to be in the pathway and four to become an expert, while pupils study biomedical science with the human body systems, genetics of disease and medical terminology, plus there are opportunities to earn an officiant’s license and work at junior high games. Public service requisites range from psychology and sociology to public speaking and a law and trial capstone. Other opportunities include certifications, IT, biomed and related capstones, experiential learning from job shadowing and College Credit Plus courses.

Groups rotated during intervals to learn something about each program and completed activities from binary coding in the informational technology (IT) course and designing business logos for interactive media to viewing animals and machine demonstrations in the FFA program, making spaghetti-based bridges in the engineering class and learning about vital signs, cultures and syringes in the biomedical lab.

IT teacher Emily Waggoner and her students led underclassmen in creating bracelets with their binary initials as a computer programming lesson.

“They are getting a glimpse of what they can do to get to the top of the pathway,” Waggoner said, saying her program includes IT and logistics with computer programming at the highest level. “This is where they get into interactive games and stories and have an activity for coding computers.”

Derek Gulling and his students introduced the younger students to civil engineering by building spaghetti noodle bridges and learning about circuitry with electrical engineering.

“The students did it all. I just facilitated and they did the presentation to designing the activities,” Gulling said.

JoAnn Stagani’s class discussed biomed and healthcare and provided activities such as fingerprinting, vital signs classifications and pipetting (syringes). Stagani said her class also includes visits from medical professionals from Trinity Health Services and Belmont College, plus some of her graduates have gone into the healthcare field.

Agriculture and FFA teachers Chuck Cline and Kristen Truex’s students showcased animals, led presentations and discussed forestry while Cline demonstrated the CNC plasma cutter in the shop room. He explained the room also included a router and carpentry tools but FFA included much more. Students noted the many potential careers stemming from natural resources and agriculture to power mechanics, plus the many opportunities FFA affords through community service and leadership.

Some junior high and sixth-grade students showed definite interest in taking CTE classes in the future, but everyone enjoyed the experience.

Sixth-grader Kendall Baker said she was interested in coding while seventh-grader Garrett Crawford said he had fun.

“I liked the bridge-building activity,” said seventh-grader Aubrey Holland of the engineering class. “I’ll probably take the engineering pathway.”