EVANSTON — Uinta County School District No. 1 (UCSD No. 1) held its Career and Technical Showcase open house at Evanston High School on Thursday, April 28.  The showcase is designed to display the special opportunities and programs provided for students in the district made possible in part by funding from the Perkins Grant.

Visitors received a map directing them to the different classrooms where a teacher and volunteer students provided information and show examples of the work done in that course.

On the second floor of EHS near the media center, Aspen Elementary teacher Brooke George and three of her students — Hathan Hagerman, Dominic Pentze and Miles Mancera-Leasure — demonstrated the computer games they had created with SCRATCH coding on their laptops.  The students also showed mini-computers they had created and the cases they made with them by using a 3-D printer. The students could play the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” on the mini computers (micro-bits) or they could send letters, creating a message.

“I work with third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students who learn all about computers and can create different games on them and even make a weather station,” George said.

EHS computer science teacher Colin Wilson and student Connor Culp were demonstrating a new addition to the learning lab, augmented reality goggles, which allow a person to see and draw with colors. They can also be used to help teach many skills, including medical training.

“These goggles are not virtual reality,” Wilson said. “They are in the control of the wearer and can be used as simply as a drawing tool or to use as a means to see inside the visual model of a human body.”

Continuing on the second floor, visitors could stop in the woodworking classroom where teacher Randy Barker proudly showed the results of his students learning. Gun cabinets, desks, work benches, coffee tables, dining tables and more — all made by students — filled the shop.

Student Kyle Barker stood proudly by the gun cabinet he had built. In a small room was a laser computer where students could design signs and create a variety of objects. Also in the room with the laser computer was a dinosaur head hanging on the wall and Barker explained that it had been made from 84 layers of cardboard pressed together and cut out with the laser printer.

Next to Barker’s room was agriculture and welding teacher Brenden Ellis’s classroom. Ellis teaches ranch management and other agricultural courses, as well as welding and metal fabrication. In the metal workshop, Ellis pointed out a hay-bale wagon the students were making that would be used on the school ranch. In the same area was a very large metal laser machine where students could make metal signs.

Students in ranch management, Ellis said, had just finished branding, castrating and vaccinating calves, preparing them for market. 

“I have a female student who is spearheading a project to build a greenhouse at the school ranch,” Ellis said. “In the summer, there are 13 students who help on the ranch and receive internship school credits for their work.”

Casey Hardin in the auto body shop teaches students basic auto maintenance, basic mechanics, and auto body repair and paint. He also works with senior-level students on their comprehensive auto projects. The auto body shop was filled with a variety of automobiles in various stages of renovation and repair. 

Drafting teacher Larry Wagstaff works with students from all four grades at the high school. He said he first makes them draw their designs by hand and they progress by taking that hand drawn design and drafting it into a three-dimensional drawing. 

“I have one girl who is designing a house and will build a model of it for her senior project,” Wagstaff said.

On the main floor of EHS, in room 106, business teacher Susan Evans led the Herald on a tour of the little shop off her classroom, which her students operate. The students are responsible for designing the store, deciding on the products, and then marketing them. Two students are responsible for opening and running the store during lunch time every day. Students rotate who will be running the store each day and are given class credit for their time.

In Evans’ course, the students receive training in sales, customer service, data processing, purchasing and marketing along with store design. 

“I had two DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) students, Aidan Jacketta and Steven Bowen, who were able to attend the national DECA competition in Atlanta, Georgia, where they competed in marketing and business areas with role plays,” Evans said. “I was so proud of them.”

Evans said she also teaches business finance and accounting courses for Western Wyoming College at EHS and students in those classes earn both high school and college credits.

Last on the tour of the showcase was the culinary arts classroom, where EHS teacher Trudy Holt and Horizon High School teacher Candi DeCoite and their respective students had prepared a large number of treats for the visitors.

DeCoite teaches culinary arts, along with college and career readiness, at Horizon.

Holt also teaches child development, homes and design and family career and community leaders of America, all under the heading of family and consumer science.

“We hold a pre-school class twice a week for a two-hour block,” Holt said. “This course offers an internship for work at ECDC (Evanston Child Development Center).”