Taking Fifth Grade to HirePaths

I’m Kristin Ray, and I teach fifth grade at Wolf Springs Elementary School in Overland Park, Kansas. Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, I was a HirePaths Teacher Ambassador. My students loved incorporating career exploration into the classroom, so I’m sharing some of our favorite activities.

21st-Century Skills

It’s no secret that our economy is constantly changing and our world continues to grow, especially in technology. When I was in school, the coolest game on the computer was The Oregon Trail, the Apple IIe was the newest and most innovative thing out on the market, and I was over the moon to get a phone that didn’t have a rotary dial. Facetime and Zoom were only fragments of imagination at Disney World, but now things are moving so quickly, I can’t keep the latest and greatest iPhone in my hand.

What I’m trying to say is that we need to be teaching kids essential skills to any job or career that they choose in their future. Today, interviewers are looking for skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, perseverance and creative thinking in candidates. It’s not enough to teach by the book if we want our students to be college-, career- and life-ready. I love STEM activities for this reason. One of my favorite ways to start off the year is to have students work in groups of 3 or 4 and work to build the tallest free-standing tower of balloons. From figuring out how to blow up and tie a balloon, to starting to build and construct, to problem-solving falling towers, it’s a start to building on 21st-century skills. Throughout the year, we incorporate STEM activities into our class lessons.

Flying High in Aviation

Fifth graders at Wolf Springs have been blessed with the opportunity to learn about careers in aviation on a retired airplane at our very own airport, MCI. The TriStar experience is always a highlight of our year. Students are welcomed onto the plane and get to sit in first class as the instructor introduces them to the stations they will participate in. Students begin by learning the aviation alphabet by naming the modules: Module Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo and Foxtrot. Throughout these stations, students learn all the different career paths that go into aviation, from ground control and mechanics, to sitting in the cockpit with a pilot, to STEM activities learning about things such as Newton’s First Law of Motion. Students create a hovercraft using an old CD and a balloon. They learn that an object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an external force.

Farm to Table

If you haven’t had had Mr. Bill Johnson, from Kansas Corn STEM, come to your classroom to talk about careers in agriculture, you are missing out. This year he visited our fifth graders and engaged them for an hour talking about agriculture. I will admit, I thought an hour of talking about agriculture might be a little boring, but I was wrong. All 26 of  the students were enthralled by his stories, lessons and activities. What do you think about when you hear agriculture? Farmers? Me too. That was the first thing my students said, but before we knew it, our volunteer farmer had connections to distributors, food chains, food science, mechanics, engineering, medicine, law, textiles and the list went on and on. My students learned that only one-tenth of the state of Kansas is made up of buildings, houses and commercial properties. That means nine-tenths of our state is farmland. Then students were invited to browse products that came from corn. Kansas Corn STEM also provides free Mystery of Corn readers that we read and discuss throughout the year. You can register today for a free visit from Mr. Bill Johnson.

Adopt-A-Pilot Program

What better way to inspire kids to explore the world of aviation than to have a pilot come to your classroom for games and STEM activities? Our pilot, Jeff Callaway, came to visit four times and provided us with videos and information about aviation.

Each student in our class was provided with a student workbook to keep track of all the cool learning from the ground to the air. We played bingo, made paper airplanes and learned about physics and flying, but the best part was the questions students were able to ask. What made you want to be a pilot? How did you get started? Did you have to go to college? What is the best place you have flown to? Do you get to spend time in the places you fly to? Having that experience was great, and students asked in-depth questions. Mr. Callaway was smart to pass out candy to anyone who asked a question or answered a review question. Well played, Mr. Callaway! One thing I loved about his visits were the values he talked about. These went right into the 21st-centry skills that make students college-, career- and life-ready. I highly recommend adopting a pilot! Learn more here.

Kristin Ray is a fifth grade teacher at Wolf Springs Elementary School in Overland Park, Kansas. She was the 2022-2023 Kansas Office of Registered Apprenticeship HirePaths Ambassador.