Ohio State teams with Columbus City Schools to develop Ohio’s future workforce

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Ohio State teams with Columbus City Schools to develop Ohio's future workforce

High schoolers explore manufacturing, engineering, health, marketing and entrepreneurship careers

Columbus high school students are receiving a hands-on introduction this summer to careers in health, engineering, and marketing and entrepreneurship through a partnership between The Ohio State University, Columbus City Schools, the I Know I Can nonprofit organization and Battelle.

Two hundred rising sophomores from Beechcroft, East, Walnut Ridge and West high schools visited Ohio State's Columbus and Newark campuses last week for the Careers in STEM Summer Experience. The event included hands-on activities related to each industry.

The campus visit coincided with the launch of career-based programs at the high schools, said Philip Gibert, a career navigator with I Know I Can.

"We have four new academies within in-demand fields in Ohio," he said. "These students will matriculate into those programs to be able to get career experience within an in-demand field, as well as making sure that they have on-hand training, experiential learning, and connecting careers and classrooms."

Students in the manufacturing pathway visited Ohio State's Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence (CDME) on the Columbus campus. The students toured the facility and participated in activities that demonstrated manufacturing processes.

Mark Wilson, CDME lead engineer, guided the students through an activity in which they produced handmade metal items, such as a sign with raised letters spelling out O-H-I-O.

In addition to highlighting careers in manufacturing, the exercise was designed "to make them aware of any kind of thing that's outside of the box, outside of their normal experiences, to show them the world is a big place and there's a lot of stuff to learn how to do," he said. "The more they're … exposed to things, the more likely they're going to find a positive path in life. That was the whole point."

West High School student Heaven Boyd said the metalmaking exercise provided a behind-the-scenes look at how products are made.

"I did find that making this metal was actually pretty interesting to me - melting it, weighing it and then banging the sand off of it," she said. "My experience was pretty fun."

Terron Teasley, who also attends West High, said touring the CDME made him aware that modern manufacturing facilities are high-tech operations.

"I had a fun time experiencing walking around, looking at new things I never looked at before," he said. "I got to do some things I've never done before."

Boyd said participating in the metalmaking exercise helped him realize that a career in manufacturing is an option.

"I would love to do this one day," he said.

A major objective of the Careers in STEM Summer Experience is to develop a talent pool for Ohio's workforce in the coming years, Gibert said.

"A lot of our baby boomers are leaving or retiring," he said. "It's important to have these types of programs [for students] to see the value in person and talk to people in the field and get hands-on experience where they're able to adapt and feel and want to be in those professions."

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