Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with Bill Mellick’s correct title.
MANSFIELD — Emily Keller squeezed the plastic tube until a glob of blue jelly landed on her forearm, which she then smeared around with the end of a portable ultrasound wand.
A cord plugged into the other end connected the ultrasound machine to a tablet on the table beside her. Waves of white squiggles appeared against a black background.
“You guys are actually looking at what’s going on underneath my skin,” Keller said to a group of kids from Malabar Intermediate School.
“See that long skinny structure kind of right in the middle that looks like a tube? That’s a blood vessel,” she said.
Keller was one of several area professionals to set up a booth in the Malabar gymnasium Wednesday for the school’s sixth-grade career fair.
More than 20 professions were represented, including jobs in the medical field, law enforcement, construction, military banking, auto sales, real estate and personal services.
“As school counselors, we have standards that we have to teach, just like classroom teachers do, and career is one of them,” school counselor Gabrielle Yeater said.
Yeater said she wanted students to learn about careers they might not have known existed.
“We want kids to know you don’t always have to go to college to be able to be successful in life,” she said. “You can do jobs you would never even think of.”
All of the school’s sixth graders attended. Yeater said this was the first year Malabar has hosted a career fair, but it won’t be the last.
“We plan to continue to do it every year,” she said.
Student Cynsetta Huffman said some of her favorite moments were seeing x-rays and a truck from the Ohio Department of Transportation.
“I got to sit in it and lift the picker-upper thing,” she said.
For Tre’shawn Lane, the most interesting stations were the ones operated by the Mansfield Police Department and Kingwood Center Gardens.
One takeaway for him was how pay scales can vary by profession.
“Some of them, I heard they pay $40,000 a year. Some pay $75,000 a year. Some of them probably pay more than that,” he said.
Lindsay Rossi West, education coordinator at Kingwood, brought in seed packets, models of the frog and butterfly life cycles, a microscope and preserved insect specimens.
“It’s really fulfilling to be able to talk with this age group and give them an idea of careers that maybe they don’t see a lot,” she said.
“I know my job is not something that many of the kids knew about and something I didn’t even know was an option when I was their age or even in college,” West said.
Students also had the chance to be entered into a prize drawing if they managed to fill out a career fair bingo card.
Squares included “someone who has a job you would enjoy doing,” “someone who is a first generation college graduate” and “someone who has an example of being a problem solver at his/her job.”
Several visiting professionals said the cards were a helpful resource.
“They are very willing to speak, very willing to talk, and they really want to know things,” said Bill Mellick, chief operating officer of Central Ohio Restoration, LLC & Central Ohio Plumbing Heating Cooling, LLC.
“The school’s done a good job of preparing them. They have questions to ask.”
A set of magna-tiles on Zara’s table also helped break the ice.
“It’s interactive. It’s something for them to do, and it allows you time to talk,” he said.
“Once they get through their checklist, a lot of them want to know what it takes to do the career, what kind of jobs (are available,)” he added.
Nikia Fletcher represented Mansfield City Schools’ college and career readiness department. Her table included items familiar to the career tech students at Mansfield Senior High School — from a student-built robot and welding helmets to cosmetology mannequins and computer parts used by future cybersecurity professionals.
Fletcher said knowing about future career paths helps keep students engaged in class.
“If (kids) start with the end in mind, they’re more successful when they get up to high school,” she said.
“If you’re just taking math, and you don’t know why you’re taking math, it doesn’t connect to anything. But if you’re taking math because you want to be able to be in construction one day, that’s when fractions start to make sense. That’s when it’s connected to something.”
