Meet the gang exploring their own career options. They have lots of ideas about how to check out jobs and learn more about them. They each have staring roles in the books or on our Facebook page.
Jenny
Jessie
Betik
Fran
Nixie
Patti
Sara
Winston
Jenny
Jenny has been telling people all year that she is going to be an engineer. Her neighbor just freaked her out by asking what type of engineering? Jenny didn’t know there were so many options.
She is keenly interested in machines in factories. She searched the internet for “What types of engineers make machines?” She found a great website that explains all types of engineers. It has interviews with engineers explaining why they like their job and what they do at work. It explains 15 different types of engineers in words she can understand http://futuresinengineering.org/what.php?id=2
Jessie
Jessie creates as many of his school reports and projects around chemistry and engineering as he can. His fascination started when he toured the fire station and learned about the special fabric used to create fire suits that resist flames. He wanted to learn about all the different ways chemicals change the use of an object. His next science fair project is about how to remove soap from water.
Betik
Betik Rocks! Actually he loves rocks. He likes learning about where rare rocks come from and why they exist at all. He likes to go to museums and find the rocks that can be made into jewelry and the ones that are found around dinosaur discoveries. He has started collecting a list of jobs that would let him discover better ways to understand our planet and how to use the planet better. He has come up with 110 jobs so far. He has only been at the task for about 4 months.
Fran
Unlike most students, Fran feels very certain about what she wants to do for her career. She loves to write. She loves technology. She loves to research and explore. She wants to be a journalist focusing on science and technology. She figured this out by realizing that curiosity continually led her to the same magazines and websites. She started fantasizing about being the one that found the new technologies being developed and shared them with the world.
Because she is so happy that she knows what she wants to be, she feels it is her mission to help other kids do the same thing.
Nixie
Nixie is creative and very organized. She is very excited about her school’s technology club. She is the club’s President even though she doesn’t think she is the most technical in the group. She is currently organizing the club to teach technology to people at the local senior citizens center. They are going to teach older people how to use the computer. She is going to teach Skype, Facetime and chat software. This way the seniors can stay in touch with their grandkids that don’t live in town.
Patti
Patti saw her grandfather needing an entire team of people from the hospital and doctor’s office, to help him get back to feeling healthy after his heart attack. She also saw various medical workers helping others. She is now very curious about what each type of professional does and how they contribute to the care of sick and injured people. She thinks these might be the type of jobs she could do.
Sara
Sara loves math. She thinks about the math it takes to design a building correctly. She thinks about the math it takes to multiply a recipe for a family, into a meal for a large crowd. She helps the family with all the calculations in planning how far they can drive each day during the summer camping trips they take all over the country.
She talked to her uncle, who is an accountant about the math he does to help his company keep their money organized. She has decided that is not what she wants to do with math.
She wants to talk to somebody about the math involved in planning how much of a product is likely to be sold. But she doesn’t know whom to ask, yet. She is very curious.
Winston
Winston is going to make it happen. He is going to find a way to live the way he wants to live. His favorite cousin is in veterinary school. They have talked about animals all their lives. But Winston wants to live in and on the water. He is looking for any way to combine animals and water to make a living. Somebody told him once to have 10 items on his checklists to help him make big decisions. Those are his first two checklist items as he starts thinking about his future career.