Updated: Corrected Link – 4/1/11
It’s often been said that teachers are the most important people in a child’s life, besides parents. Teachers contribute to the shape of our workforce.
Here at Greater Spokane Incorporated, we’re constantly working to create a better, more skilled workforce. One way to do that is to put careers in front of educators, who will then take that information and pass it along to their students.
So how do we do that?Our Teach the Teachers program brings educators from area districts out to different businesses and introduces them to today’s opportunities. Our goal is to introduce teachers to the many career opportunities within the Spokane region and the education and training programs that would prepare their students for those careers.
Remember field trips as a kid? We’re now taking teachers on field trips of their own.
Yesterday, educators from Community Colleges of Spokane and the Spokane, Cheney, West Valley, East Valley, Central Valley and Mead school districts came together at the Spokane Waste to Energy Plant in the morning to hear from administrators and Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., and learned about the different engineering and manufacturing careers. Since they’re educators, the teachers paid very close attention and made sure their students would have the same info once they got back to school.
This news story does a great job explaining in simple terms what the program does:
Some of what the teachers learned shows just how valuable the Waste to Energy Plant is to our area. Did you know many manufacturers purchase recycled materials from the plant? This all happened because of a large demand for the materials. Inland Empire Paper Company, for example, purchases recycled paper from the plant.
People create an average of five pounds of garbage per day, according to the plant. The Waste to Energy Plant is here to recycle as much as possible so we can convert it into energy for the area.
This is just one example of many businesses that contribute to our workforce. The second half of the day was spent at Gonzaga University, where the teachers were introduced to engineering careers.
The teachers’ students are the ones that benefit the most from this program. How lucky those students are to have teachers being proactive in helping them find careers.
See photos from yesterday’s program here.
