Career Education Program Inspires Students

PHLF staff, docents, and volunteers from AIAPittsburgh’s Young Architect’s Forum (YAF) presented an 80-minute career education program to 12 Pittsburgh Public Schools in April. Teachers commended the program, titled “People Who Work to Improve Our Community,” for “captivating the students, introducing them to jobs they did not know about, and driving home the point that they need to graduate from high school.”

Another teacher added: “Very few times can someone come in and grab the attention of all students. Every student was engaged and ready to learn and explore.”

Fourth-grade students learned about 16 professions through huge, full color posters and “tools of the trade.” They also toured the school (including the boiler room when possible) and discussed the surrounding neighborhood. They figured out how urban designers, architects, engineers, landscape architects, developers, contractors, electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, carpenters, stone masons, small-business owners, bankers, lawyers, preservationists, and public officials would have been involved in creating or improving their school or neighborhood.

“The real-life objects were great. They really gave the students an opportunity to ‘pretend’,” noted one teacher.

Another added: “The program allowed students to see how things actually work in the school and community.”

PHLF thanks:

• all the businesses who contributed photographs and information for use in the posters, and the “tools of the trade”;
• The Alfred M. Oppenheimer Memorial Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Fine Foundation, and McSwigan Family Foundation whose support of PHLF’s educational programs helped underwrite this new resource; and
• Joanna Beres, Valerie McDonough, Jenna Cramer, Phillips Iarrapino, and its docents and college interns (see below) for helping staff members present this program.