Lincoln Elementary students zone in and discover

Sometimes knowing what you don’t want to do with your life is just as important as knowing what you do want to do.

Taylor Roberts discovered recently that she doesn’t want to pursue a career in construction trades. Roberts, from Lincoln Elementary School, was one of a few hundred fifth graders who recently explored careers at Great Plains Technology Center’s Discovery Zone.

Roberts was one of the first students to be introduced to the carpentry/construction trades station where students had the opportunity to use a saw, drill a hole and drive a nail into a board. Each student was given a hard hat and safety goggles before attempting the three activities.

“I’m afraid I will cut my hand off,” she told the instructor overseeing the activity as she backed away from the saw.

After watching other students use the small jigsaw to cut off a slice of wood, Roberts was ready to give it a try.

“It was kinda hard to push, but it was fun,” she said after the experience.

Does she want to pursue a career in construction trades?

“No!” was her emphatic reply, although she said she liked sawing better than driving a nail or drilling a hole. Even though she was reluctant to participate, after it was over she said she liked the carpentry station the best.

“It was something I’ve never done before,” she said. “I can do stuff I never did before and there’s lots of action to it.”

Giving students an opportunity to try things they have never done before is one goal of Discovery Zone, according to Sally Greenlee, marketing specialist at Great Plains. The goal is to introduce students to various career opportunities. Students rotate through six of eight different stations covering topics such as carpentry, pre-engineering, bio medical, nursing, criminal justice, culinary and teacher prep.

Great Plains’ new cosmetology program also was on display this year, and it proved to be a popular stop.

Kristy Harvey, Tearah Threatt and Ashia Morgan, all from Lincoln Elementary, couldn’t wait to practice box braiding the hair on one of the mannequins.

“We like to do hair, even if we are in the classroom,” Threatt said as the three girls each worked on a third of the mannequin’s hair. “I love how we got to do different stuff we never got to do before,” Threatt said of Discovery Zone.

Learning to take a fingerprint was something that Taleah Fisher, Lincoln Elementary, had never done before. That activity was part of the criminal justice station where students learned about careers in law enforcement.

First, the students were told they had to “oil up” by rubbing their fingers in the creases by their noses and over their foreheads to get some oil on their fingertips. Next, they pressed their thumbs onto a mirror before using a magnet to capture some fingerprint dust, which they then dusted over their prints on the mirror. After the prints were highlighted, students used a strip of tape to lift the prints off the mirror and onto an index card, where the prints showed up as black smudges.

“It’s fun. It was kinda weirdish looking,” she said of her prints. “I want to do it again.”

Getting a “do over” also appealed to Elijah Margiotta, also from Lincoln, after his hands were subjected to the “germ detector.” Students ran their hands under a light which showed how good they had washed.

“There were a lot of germs on top of my hands,” he said. “It wasn’t good. I’m going to clean my hands better. They told us to scrub the top of our hands and to scrub under our nails.”

Damien White, Lincoln Elementary, participated in an activity in which he was familiar: building a rocket using a straw, paper, tape and clay.

“I made this same one on another field trip,” White said as he cut a piece of paper for the fin on the rocket. “I made a robot at home out of LEGOs. It was so fun.” White said he already knew he needed to reduce the friction on his rocket “so it will go farther and slice through the air.”

White said he likes to build things and that the pre-engineering station, where students built the rockets, was his favorite.

“It’s really hands-on and it teaches me about what I want to learn,” he said. “I think this rocket is going far.”

White, along with the other students, had the opportunity to fire the little rockets. White said he was pleased by how far his rocket flew across the room.

Discovery Zone is designed to get students thinking about careers and to see what Great Plains has to offer. As eighth graders, they can attend Tech Know Zone where they get a more in-depth look at course offerings and can take classes starting their junior year.