Career education ignites passion and purpose within students. This is the promise of career and technical education (CTE) but far too few rural students have the opportunity to explore an industry that aligns with their interests and goals. Thankfully, through a unique internship made possible by OPTERRA Energy Solutions, El Paso-Gridley CUSD #11 students Jasper Wenger and Nathaniel Hiles were able to start their journeys into the working world while still in high school.
Like most rural districts in Illinois, El Paso-Gridley sports a variety of CTE courses in-house, such as agriculture, business, and family and consumer science. Although many more career education options are made available through their nearest area career center, certain industries are harder for students to access, like energy. In fact, even though careers in the energy sector are among the top five largest growing occupations in Illinois over the next decade, hardly any rural districts offer clear pathways into it.
This is a reality that Jasper, like all rural students, is keenly aware of. Jasper is interested in nuclear physics, but understands that “rural districts or areas in general have less opportunities than bigger cities. I think sometimes they’re overlooked. If you’re located in a bigger city, usually you have better funding and access.”
Despite the limitations, Jasper has continued to connect his classes and experiences to his bigger career goals. “I’m big on science,” he shares, “Eighth grade was focused on physical science but what I was really interested in were the hands-on aspects. Going into high school I took more advanced classes like chemistry and physics my sophomore year. Currently, I’m looking into nuclear physics.” This year, Jasper chose to take AP Physics to grow beyond basic mechanics into more complex topics like fusion, fission, and nuclear reactions.
Jasper’s pathway mirrors that of many rural students. Rather than stay contented with fulfilling basic requirements, he had a clear idea of a topic he wanted to explore and he used all his school had to offer to bend opportunities toward his pursuits. This individualization of his education is a dream for many, but it’s a practical reality in a rural district where students must make full use of the assets at hand. Like other rural schools, Jasper’s is not always able to offer every class that students request for a lack of numbers, staffing, or resources: “Due to the fact that I live in a rural area, our smaller district only offers about five AP courses, and some of those don’t even run due to the low numbers. For example, AP Chemistry hasn’t run for years and next year AP Physics won’t run either because there aren’t enough students.” Instead, Jasper has taken the initiative to pursue a novel route that many rural students may not realize is available. “The science instructor at my school has offered to facilitate an independent study,” he shares, “A lot of kids don’t realize there are so many resources online for them to study for AP tests outside of school and then take an administered test at a facility. My school was willing to host an environment for me to self-study.” By doing this, Jasper is able to build an individualized education plan that walks him into his career interests while still showing up as a course on his transcript.
Students like Jasper recognize that while education and opportunities happen locally, application of skills in a career can occur globally. When asked about how he views his work in nuclear physics and energy impacting his local area, Jasper shares that he doesn’t “usually think about it like that. I think more about how I can benefit the world, rather than just my local community. I did start looking at it as how it could apply and benefit my local community, but generally I’ve thought of how we can innovate our understanding of science.” Jasper’s approach reminds us that rural students have a global gaze, and they rely on local learning to help fuel their impact-driven aspirations.
A watershed moment that propelled Jasper’s career progress came when he learned of a novel energy education program through his school counselor. “When it was first introduced to me,” he explains, “I was just told about an online curriculum portion that would go over renewable energy. The idea was to get the youth of America who are bright and passionate about sciences into the new energy industry.” What Jasper didn’t realize at first was that he would also gain an internship within the energy industry: “Because OPTERRA was doing HVAC work at our school, Nathaniel and I had the opportunity to have an onsite internship where we could [job] shadow, watch the construction process, learn how they problem solved, and read the designs with the architects and engineers.”
This surprise offering from OPTERRA is called “Energy Industry Fundamentals 2.0.” In it, students are “offered a comprehensive exploration of how energy is created, sustained, engineered, and innovated–while emphasizing environmental stewardship and introducing students to diverse careers in the energy sector.” Along with the virtual learning that Jasper described, the course includes an internship with an OPTERRA energy project and a capstone experience where students use their own interests and ambition to answer a critical question: “Your community is facing an energy crisis. Choose a fuel source that could viably generate electricity in your community for the next 10 years.” Channeling his passion for nuclear physics, Jasper teamed up with his classmate Nathaniel to develop a small modular nuclear reactor for their rural region.
Jasper embarked on an incredible journey, and how he did it is nothing short of exemplary for other districts: online instruction with in-person, school-based internships. Plenty of rural schools are turning to high-quality virtual instruction out of necessity because of the persistent educator shortage crisis in their regions, but we often overlook how the school sites themselves are the best assets at hand for all manner of work-based learning. As OPTERRA’s program demonstrates, Jasper was able to gain high-quality technical knowledge through an online course then practice those skills with professionals at an active job site on the school grounds. This is true rural collaboration at its best, and it provided Jasper and Nathaniel the stepping stones to their future beyond high school.
The entire experience was “eye-opening,” Jasper recalls, “just getting exposed to the industry and seeing so many people focused on one goal of safe, renewable energy for other people rather than just profit was really cool […] It gave me the opportunity to nerd out because I learned about things I liked.”
Jasper said he and Nathaniel chose a modular reactor because “nuclear power is usually high output. Even with a small modular reactor, it still produces a ton of energy. But given how small our town is, there’d be a lot of excess energy, so we also researched battery storage and how we could set up a grid to benefit nearby towns.” [1]
For all the fun Jasper had with the project, he admitted having some nerves too: “It was my first internship, so I was initially nervous but also really excited because I felt like this was an opportunity to dip my toes in the water of what the industry actually looks like and make sure that is what I want to do.” This is the essence of career education, and done in a truly impactful way by using assets at hand to serve a specific student-centered goal. In Jasper’s words, “CTE to me is engaging young adults and giving them the opportunity to explore fields that want to join. For me, I’m into nuclear energy, so just looking at energy sources that aren’t carbon-based and working with onsite construction that has to do with HVAC is very beneficial because the last thing someone would want is to set their whole focus on a career but to realize it isn’t for them and they’re stuck.”
Just like many other rural students across Illinois, Jasper hadn’t heard of an internship program like this before: “This internship is the only time I’ve heard of engaging people in careers. I haven’t sought out internships before, so there should be more work to reach out to the young adults who are the future of America and allow them to explore careers.” He continues, adding that some students might even feel “intimidated” by the concept of an internship because they aren’t often discussed or offered: “ I think there are probably a lot of kids who don’t even think of internships, who don’t know what they are. At least in our school district they are encouraged, but they might not cross the minds of others.”
Jasper’s insight proves true. The Rural IL CTE Project had the opportunity to survey all rural districts about their career education programming. As it turns out only 39% of rural districts offer internship experiences, and far fewer offer equally engaging opportunities like apprenticeships and mentorships. When paired with the rarity of energy career programs in rural schools, OPTERRA’s offering of instruction and an internship through a school-based project fills a clear and immediate void. While a few other innovative schools and industry partners collaborate on similar efforts, OPTERRA’s work is a replicable model that more rural schools need to pursue in order to expand the horizons for more students like Jasper.
In Jasper’s eyes, we ought to advocate more strongly for similar programs to “better promote internship opportunities just to make sure students know you can go out and look for them, because a lot of times they don’t just find you. I happened to have the internship recommended to me because the company was already doing work in our school.” The value of and need for these types of programs extends beyond the career skills. “Aside from just learning about renewable energy,” Jasper adds, “I develop teamwork skills too. I can be more creative, work better with other people, and it helps keep me accountable over the summer. Our school does better at telling people to be proactive, but I think it can be hard in rural areas generally. It’s very important and it’s how you get successful students.”
Jasper was afforded a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and his own words and work testify to how he embraced that chance with a greater maturity and fullness than even some older adults. Rather than remaining limited by the same problems that plague rural schools nationwide, he was able to take a pragmatic grasp of the opportunities at hand to advance toward his larger personal goals. The innovative approach used by OPTERRA’s “Energy Industry Fundamentals” experience provided the perfect pathway forward for Jasper and his classmate Nathaniel on their next steps on their exploratory journey toward a career.
Over the course of his Junior year, Jasper admits that “this year was definitely harder than last year, it pushed me more mentally than it did content wise.” However, he’s stepping into his last year of high school with a renewed confidence after acting in his school’s play. “Overall,” he reflects, “my goals remain strong…I still plan to go into Physics. I was interested in Nuclear Physics, but now it’s more so Particle Physics, dealing with very small particles but for different reasons.”
Big projects and promises aside, Jasper concludes with a sentiment shared among many young adults that we as rural educators, industry leaders, and community members ought to remember as our guiding truth in this work: “Ultimately, my hope is to be able to say that I went out, lived my best life, and made a difference, which I think I definitely can do with nuclear energy. That’s one of the reasons I want to go into it, because there’s a broad and global benefit from it.”
- Jasper and Nathaniel were able to present their capstone project at the end of their summer internship. You can watch the presentation and hear about the work in their own words here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtgK14EnKLI&t=7884s