High school girl Alexa Stripeika aspires to be an engineer but has no idea which one. She’s drawn to environmental engineering in part because of her father’s work.

While Stripeika was a young girl, “he used to own his own company, so I remember going into his office and being fascinated by the tools I saw there,” she added. Through a mentorship program facilitated by the high school’s Career and Technical Education department and the local NGO Science Moab’s School to Science initiative, she is currently pursuing a career in civil engineering.

Various internship and job-shadowing opportunities are available to high school students through the School to Science program, which matches students with local and visiting scientists. With the help of this course, young people can learn about jobs in science as well as enhance their scientific literacy. As a training ground for mentorship skills, the program can benefit mentors as well as the future generation of scientists and researchers they support. Mentoring a scientist can help them secure more grant funding because it shows that their work has a positive influence on the community.

Due to COVID-19 concerns, the program was postponed until the spring of 2021. The program is back on track for the upcoming semester.

Carrie Schwartz, director of Science Moab’s School to Science program, said she was “elated” to be able to provide a wide range of job shadows and internships for GCHS students in the 2021-2022 school year. Enviable prospects include sifting through museum collections and capturing insects in their natural habitat as well as conducting lab research and analyzing geological vibrations. According to Schwartz, 18 local scientists have agreed to participate in the program, and nine of them will serve as mentors this semester.

Stripeika is the first student in the School to Science program to be assigned a mentor for a three-quarters-long internship. Taylor Hall, a geotechnician and the founder of Moab Geotechnical Group, serves as her mentor.

For Hall, the mentoring opportunity arose out of gratitude for the mentors who helped him along the way through school and into the workforce. He’s also an adjunct lecturer at Utah Valley University, where he has a passion for education.

We met on a lovely September morning at the site of a prospective subdivision in order to explain the importance of geotechnical expertise in a development project. In their second meeting in the field, they looked around the school’s campus for the second time.

Hall provided Stripeika with a geotechnical perspective on the proposed development site, assessing the site’s problems and circumstances.

No, I don’t see anything here that I think could have an impact on a project. Stripeika was asked by Hall. It appeared that a nearby canal was at risk of flooding, as well as a steep dirt slope that appeared to be unstable. Her perceptive abilities were praised by Hall.

There were descriptions of hazardous soil types, the site was categorized, and an inclinometer and trigonometric function were used to estimate the slope of the property abutting the site. It was a jam-packed seminar that covered a wide range of geotechnical engineering tools, methodologies, and issues. It had been an exhausting hour, but Stripeika had finally made it back to the school.

CTE coordinator Kady Brennan works with mentor/mentee pairings and provides CTE students with training in skills including resume and cover letter writing, interviewing for jobs, and developing online professional profiles at Grand Canyon High School.

The Moab Regional Hospital, the KZMU radio station, and the Youth Garden Project have all put 31 students in mentorships with Brennan. A new pathway for kids to discover mentors that match their interests is provided via School to Science.

According to the Utah State Board of Education’s website, “Career Pathway” completion certificates are “an industry recognized credential of value” at the end of the CTE curriculum.

Brennan visits each student at least once during the trimester, but the mentors and mentees are responsible for scheduling their own meetings. In Brennan’s opinion, it’s a great way for teenagers to gain independence.

I like seeing how they progress,” Brennan remarked of the children.

If a student has a particular passion, Brennan and her pupils may collaborate to design an innovative work experience. It’s not necessary to focus on retail at WabiSabi in order to gain experience in business management, marketing, or even fundraising.

The School to Science initiative, Schwartz hopes, will attract not only science-minded students, but also those who are curious or interested in related subjects. Students who are interested in a wide range of subjects, from art and design to history and hiking to engineering and building, can benefit from this program,” she stated.

As a group, we’re hoping to open the door for students who are interested in science but may not realize how many ways it ties into their other interests, or who may be a bit intimidated or feel unwelcome in the sciences (as has been the case for many students of color, gender nonconforming, and students with disabilities and poverty),” said Schwartz.

School to Science is a fantastic opportunity for children and the community. A chance for the town to redefine itself as a stronghold of science, Schwartz said.