SHELBY — High school students at Shelby now have opportunities to work with and learn about things like hydraulics, robotics and electrical systems.
New state-of-the-art training machines fill the former high school library, which is now the Whippet Workforce Lab. A $1.16 million Career Technical Education Equipment grant from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce made it possible.
An open house of the new lab took place back at the beginning of October. On Monday, members of the Shelby City Schools Board of Education walked down the hall to see the high school’s latest additions.
ArcelorMittal, a steel tube manufacturing facility in Shelby, donated two pieces of equipment to the lab and offered employer insight on the programming. Buckeye Educational Systems, a Mansfield-based manufacturer’s representative, helped Shelby develop its lab and programming.
Shelby High School teacher Nick Eddleblute leads the program in the Whippet Workforce lab. He said about 35 students have been working in the lab this semester.
“They (students) kind of go around and learn about each of the systems and how it relates to different industrial settings,” he said. “Some of it is just real-life stuff that’s good to know, like measuring and hand tools.
“It’s great for any of the kids. Some of them are lined up to go to Pioneer (Career and Technology Center), some of them want to go into engineering and four-year college degrees, but they’re all having fun and enjoying learning.”
As students work through the program, they will be able to specialize in areas that interest them by earning industry-recognized micro-credentials.
High School Principal John Gies said talks are on-going with The Ohio State University at Mansfield to see about the possibility of offering College Credit Plus courses through the lab.
Gies said the goal of the lab is to help equip students with the necessary skills to enter the workforce after graduation, but also provide opportunities to leverage credentials toward a college degree.
“There’s a lot going on in here throughout the day,” he said.
Digital media room
Located in a room just off of the Whippet Workforce Lab is Shelby High School’s new digital media space.
The room is used for the high school’s digital media and podcasting courses, which include skills like interviewing, podcasting, camera work and media editing.
Both courses are offered to any students in grades nine through 12.
Gies said the school is working with WMFD to create opportunities for students’ work to be displayed on the video board in the high school gymnasium during athletic contests.
He said he’d like to do the same thing with the large screen in the north end zone at the Whippet Athletic Complex.
“If we get more cameras, we could even run replays and do different things like that,” the principal said.
High school students have even been working on a new weekly news show known as the “Whippet Weekly,” which gets emailed to all students.
Gies said there is still a lot of room to grow the digital media program, but three different sections of the course have been offered this year.
“It’s a little bit of building the airplane as you’re flying it, but it’s working so far,” he said.
