March was a busy month in ASD-W as students stoked their interests and explored future employment opportunities during a series of job expos held throughout the district.
Exhibitors from both the building and mechanical trades, and the agricultural and fisheries sectors, engaged students with fun, hands-on activities designed to introduce them to potential career paths.
“Most [students] think they don’t know what they want for a career,” said Valerie Carmichael, ASD-W Community Engagement Coordinator. Carmichael and colleague Marcy Malloy, Community School Coordinator for Cambridge-Narrows Community School, organized both the trades and agriculture expos. “The point, especially in rural areas, is to expose them to what opportunities are out there because they really have no idea.”
Skilled Trades & Manufacturing
The exhibits were “very hands-on, creative, and quite interesting,” said C-NCS Grade 12 student Lana Jeffery. Jeffery was one of 500 middle and high school students from Cambridge-Narrows, Gagetown, Minto, and Chipman schools who participated in the Interactive Skilled Trades & Manufacturing Expo at the school on March 14.
“You could see the interest and excitement in their eyes as they mulled over what their future careers could be,” said C-NCS Principal Heather Touchie-Blakely. “Getting the chance to talk to people who could answer questions and take part in hands-on activities made it a truly valuable experience.”
C-NCS students worked an excavation simulator, used virtual reality headsets to experience both welding and being in the field with the armed forces, worked on a car engine, engaged in nail-hammering competitions, and tried pipe fitting. And students from the school’s culinary class gained hands-on experience from the event, as they provided lunch for the exhibitors.
“This was an excellent opportunity for students to talk to industry leaders in the trade and manufacturing industry and ‘touch a trade’ for the day,” said Marie Savoie-Wainwright, recruitment officer for JDI Woodlands.
“This was an excellent opportunity for students to talk to industry leaders
Marie Savoie-Wainwright
in the trade and manufacturing industry and ‘touch a trade’ for the day.”
Recruitment Officer
JDI Woodlands
Agriculture & Fisheries
The hands-on learning continued on March 21 as roughly 550 middle and high school students from Canterbury High School, Harvey High School, Keswick Valley Memorial School, and Nackawic Middle & High schools gathered at Nackawic High School for the Interactive Agriculture Expo.
Students operated drones, took part in trivia challenges, planted seeds, experienced virtual reality fishing, observed weather station operation, and learned the finer points of egg, honey, and apple production.
The Agriculture Expo “was an awakening of young minds to the opportunities that working in the agriculture industry offers,” said Kim Lipsett, workforce development coordinator for the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick. “The technology and the innovative practices farms are using to provide solutions to climate change definitely piqued their interest.”
Exhibitors: Interactive Skilled Trades & Manufacturing Expo @ Cambridge-Narrows Community School, Thursday, March 14, 2024
- JD Irving
- EECD Centre of Excellence for Manufacturing & Trades
- NB TAP. New Boots
- Cambridge Narrows Fire Department
- CNCS Essential Skills
- N.B. Roofing Contractors Association
- MAP Strategic Workforce Services
- Carpenter Millwright College of NB
C2C Solutions Ltd. - EllisDon
- Northern Construction Inc.
- East Coast Trade College
- NBCC
- NB College of Craft & Design
- Mill Cove Nursing Home
- Dexter Construction
- Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre
- Worksafe NB
Elementary Masonry
And though the purpose was the same as the other expos—that is, exposing students to career possibilities—the Centre of Excellence’s Skilled Trades and Manufacturing online “Sugar Shack: A LIVE Masonry Event” on March 28 ramped up the fun of masonry for 75 classrooms of Grade 3-5 students around the province.
ASD-W’s Keswick Ridge School was one of the schools chosen to participate in the online activity, which saw students build structures with materials they made from sugar cubes, flour, and water.
Though they’re not sure what they want to do for a career, the masonry activity planted seeds for the future for Keswick Ridge School Grade 4 students Cassidy Bell and Jakeb Shepard.
“I really enjoyed building with my friends,” said Bell, who also said she would apply what she learned to building a fort.
“I would build a treehouse,” Shepard said.
Exhibitors: Interactive Agriculture Expo, at Nackawic High School, Thursday, March 21, 2024
- Nature NB
- Green Diamond Equipment
- New Brunswick 4-H
- Jolly Farmer Products
- Waygood Farm Ltd.
- McCain Foods
- Central Dairy Farmers
- Ag In the Classroom NB
- Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers
- Lactanet
- GNB Department of Agriculture, Aquaculture & Fisheries
- Agriculture & Agri Food Canada
- NB Soil & Crop Association
- Agriculture Campus/ Dalhousie University
- NHS Ag110 Class
- Agricultural Alliance of NB / Living Labs
- Egg Farmers of New Brunswick
- Farm Credit Canada
- East Coast Trades College
