Eighth-Graders Take Part In Elkhart Manufacturing Day

Horizon Education Alliance is partnering with businesses and other organizations for a seventh year to provide eighth-graders in Elkhart County with educational Manufacturing Day tours.

Manufacturing Day is a national program that creates opportunities for students to gain experience and knowledge about careers in manufacturing and to begin to build connections with the companies in their own community. Students explore different career pathways that are available to them, usually through on-site visits to local manufacturing facilities and offices.

Elkhart County middle-schoolers will visit one to five local businesses (depending on each school's eighth-grade population size), spend two hours learning about careers, and engage in various interactive activities. This format allows students to spend a longer amount of time visiting each business and engaging in the activities than in earlier years.

Businesses were trained prior to meeting with schools and taken through several examples of activities to help them think of creative ways to engage students and connect with schools in the future. One employer said they now use last year's Manufacturing Day activity to train new employees.

Sarah Koontz, Aubri Mosness and Jeni Anderson on the HEA Student Pathways team led employer trainings and provided school partners with lesson plans to engage students and deepen their understanding of how to follow a career pathway.

Read the full article from Yahoo! News here.