The pathway to a career in science, technology, engineering and math was laid out for hundreds of local students at Endress+Hauser on Thursday night.
Walking down the line of tables at the annual Community Career+Education Forum, the students and their parents were presented with the potential jobs found in STEM fields.
They used marbles and plastic pieces to see process engineering in action. Some played a supersized version of tic-tac-toe that illustrated mathematics concepts and how that could be used in varying jobs. At the skilled trades table, kids saw how to measure electrical charge and use a thermal imaging gun.
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“It was cool seeing all of the different jobs and all of the different opportunities,” said Austin Yates, an eighth grader at Franklin Community Middle School. “I liked the customer support table, and the trades table. It helped me see what I could do with science.”
The Career Pathways activity was a new feature at the Community Career+Education Forum, designed to showcase the wide range of potential careers, education and recreation revolving around STEM.
Nearly 1,000 students, parents and educators made their way through the event, speaking with local manufacturers about career opportunities, learning about degree programs at local colleges and taking part in hands-on demonstrations of robotics, 3-D printing and cutting-edge diesel engines, among other displays.
“I really like math. It’s my favorite subject,” said Phoebe Ferguson, a seventh-grader at Center Grove Middle School Central. “It’s cool to have something like this because lot of times, events like this are for adults and you have to be older to do it, but here, you can be any age and you can take part in any part of it.”
The Community Career+Education Forum was founded in 2014 as a way to help schools, students and their families learn what skills employers are looking for in their workers, as well as see the diverse types of careers currently available in advanced manufacturing.
Endress+Hauser partnered with Central Nine Career Center and Aspire Johnson County to create the career forum, which has grown into a key way to foster interest in science and technology in the county.
This year’s event proved to be one of the most well-attended organizers have had yet, said Jackie Renforth, content development specialist at Endress+Hauser.
“We heard a lot of good things from people about the Career Pathways, the PCU Challenge, the robotics teams. Overall, it seemed like everyone was very engaged,” she said.
One of the most popular attractions is Endress+Hauser’s Process Training Unit, a tool that allows workers to become familiar with different measurements, such as pressure and flow, critical to the manufacturing that they do.
Organizers of the forum have put together a challenge asking students and their parents to identify instruments on the training unit, determine what different areas measure and the units of measurement being used.
Robert Souchon, a sixth grader at Center Grove Middle School North, was carrying his clipboard examining a pressure gauge on the unit. He had come to the forum because he has an interest in being an engineer, and he thought he could learn more about that career.
“Knowing some of these things will help me learn how to make things, so it’s important,” he said.
Attendees made their way through different booths and displays, interacting with representatives from throughout the community.
At a booth for the City of Greenwood, people could see planned civic engineering projects, such as the work being done at Old City Park, and learn how STEM plays into that construction.
Duke Energy had a light-up panel showing how outages can be quickly and accurately fixed using computer sensors. Companies such as NSK and Cummins gave demonstrations of their products.
The Career Pathways activity was created to give students a sense of what they could do with their interests in STEM, providing them with the steps they’d need to take in school and later on in order to get a job.
Even if a student wasn’t sure what exactly they wanted to do, they could take their love of math or science and see what careers are available in those fields. Organizers were caught off-guard with how popular the activity proved to be.
“With it being the new activity, we weren’t sure how well-received it would be with students and parents. But we were really surprised that parents and students were really pleased with it, they found it very helpful,” said Juliana Cleveland, event planner at Endress+Hauser.
Bryson Jackson had come to the forum to learn more about math and science. The third grader at Sugar Grove Elementary School found that engineering was a job that he thought would be fun.
He called the forum, “the funnest day of my life.”
Phoebe has been coming to the forum for the past two years, and enjoyed seeing the different science-based displays and activities featured. She enjoyed it so much that she brought along a friend, Samantha Thomas, a fifth grader at Center Grove Elementary School.
Their favorite activities on Thursday were the “Are You Smarter Than an Engineer?” game that tested their STEM knowledge, as well as the 3-D printing display, where printers created objects while attendees watched in awe.
In a separate area, robotics teams from Johnson County and other local schools were showing how their creations could solve problems and complete tasks such as picking up balls.
The scale of the robots and what the teams were able to do impressed Reece Luther, an eighth grader at Franklin Township Middle School West’s robotics team.
“I was not imagining the robots to be that size. They’re huge,” he said. “It was cool to see.”
