Students at Adelaide Elementary tried out martial arts kicks, listened to electric guitar, tasted chocolate milk and practiced hairstyles at their second annual Career Fair this year.
The Oct. 10 event is part of the DiscoverU Week, a regional week of college and career exploration. The week is part of the district’s larger initiative to prepare students for college and careers. Adelaide’s career fair represents one of many activities offered to scholars to explore local jobs. Each day had a theme that ranged from learning about being a community leader to seeing teachers rock their college gear and giving kids a chance to dress up as their dream future selves.
At Adelaide, representatives from a variety of professions set up shop in the cafeteria to share a little bit about their careers.
Monica Solomonov, family liaison for Adelaide, said that “we wanted to do this to create hope in the future for our students.”
“In a parent advisory two days ago, I had a student who went to the career fair last year and now says he wants to work for Lakehaven,” Solomonov said of the local utility provider.
Representatives demonstrated a variety of careers including a painter, a plumber, a pilot and a project manager for construction. Others included a musician, cargo office agent, city planner, hair stylists, a judge, a tree cutter, children’s librarian and a firefighter.
“Before last year, we would have guests come into the classroom to talk about their careers, but last year we decided to centralize it,” Solomonov said, adding that “kids loved it so much they talked about it all year.”
Nina Meyer is a school counselor at Adelaide and helped plan the school’s version of DiscoverU.
When asked why its important to start at such a young age, Meyer said, “we like to start connecting school to their futures early. Instead of thinking of school as something you have to do, like a chore, we want to show them how it is a way to build on skills for the future.”
“They get excited about learning about careers they maybe haven’t heard of before, or even learning about new words like ‘engineer’ or ‘mechanic,’” Meyer added. “They might know they like to tinker with things, but not know the words for what they could do as a career.”
Students got to hear about what it’s like to be a musician at the Adelaide career fair.
A local apprentice plumber dressed up as one of the most famous fictional plumbers of all time – Super Mario – at the Adelaide career fair to get kids excited about the career.
To help kids build their dreams, Adelaide decorated their entrance hall windows with photographs of students holding signs with their future career goals. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror
