Rockets, Navigators share SkillsUSA knowledge at middle school conference

December 19, 2024

Seven Lincoln Public Schools students enriched their leadership talents this month by sharing valuable knowledge with younger SkillsUSA members.
 
Students from Northeast High School and North Star High School traveled to Omaha for the SkillsUSA Nebraska Middle School Skills Championships. Alyssa, Michael, Austin, Mina, Abigail, Natalie and Liam oversaw several career exploration breakout sessions to students from across eastern Nebraska. They also judged multiple SkillsUSA contests during their time at the conference.
 
Alyssa, a junior at Northeast, has been involved with SkillsUSA activities for more than two years. She said it was exciting to handle the leadership reins at the breakout sessions.
 
“I really enjoyed helping out with the middle school conference,” Alyssa said. “I found it most enjoyable because I am very driven to get as many students as possible to join SkillsUSA, and seeing how many of our younger generation is already involved made me extremely proud.”
 
North Star sophomore Abigail said it was rewarding to be involved with the project. The seven high schoolers developed an escape room lock boxes challenge and a classic Jeopardy game for the middle school students to complete.
 
“In the presentation we did for them, it was fun to work with the groups of kids and interact,” Abigail said. “I’m hoping to be a teacher, so it was a good experience. They did great and I couldn’t hype them up enough. The groups were great and it seemed like they actually were engaged and enjoyed it.”
 
Amanda Woodward teaches aviation and technical education at North Star and advises the school’s SkillsUSA chapter. She said the Rockets and Navigators learned many leadership and organizational skills from their time at the conference. They completed one portion of their chapter’s community service project with their volunteer work.
 
“All LPS students described this event as the most meaningful and fun SkillsUSA event they had ever been part of,” Woodward said. “A terrific time was had by all.”
 
SkillsUSA is a national scholastic organization that has chapters at middle school, high school and college/postsecondary levels. Teachers and industry representatives help students learn about dozens of skilled, technical and service careers through SkillsUSA activities. They also soak in knowledge about leadership, teamwork and citizenship at local, regional, state and national events.
 
Dozens of skilled and technical sciences teachers in Nebraska oversee SkillsUSA chapters at their local schools. SkillsUSA Nebraska divides the state middle school championships into eastern and western regions each year. The eastern conference took place in Omaha in early December and the western event will be held in Grand Island in early February.
 
The Rockets and Navigators spent part of their time judging SkillsUSA contests. They joined adults from both educational and industry sectors to look over multiple events. They helped with contests such as promotional billboard presentation, opening and closing ceremonies, bridge building, mousetrap vehicle, prepared speech and PowerPoint presentation.
 
The seven high schoolers also developed activities for the two breakout sessions. The group worked with Courtney Pentland to plan and practice for the big day. They came up with Jeopardy-style questions about many SkillsUSA topics. They also created five mini-escape room breakout boxes that included different keys and attachments.
 
Pentland, who is North Star’s school librarian, watched the students increase their confidence and creativity from their preparation work.
 
“For the students who put the activity together, they were able to approach the information in a way they may not have done before, because for the breakout boxes, you have to create puzzles using specific information that is challenging, but not too challenging,” Pentland said.
 
Alyssa said she experienced a personal breakthrough at the conference. She realized she was comfortable guiding the breakout sessions and helping everyone with the activities.
 
“I learned that I am very confident in front of students,” Alyssa said. “Before going into this conference, I wasn’t entirely sure if I had the ability to guide students the way that I wished I could, but through this conference I gained a lot of confidence in my leadership skills.”
 
Abigail said she enjoyed watching the resilience the middle schoolers displayed in her groups. They had to solve problems in a quick and unscripted format, which meant some potential solutions didn’t pan out. Instead of getting down on themselves, Abigail’s students came up with new answers to the puzzles.
 
“I loved helping and working with the kids when they had problems,” Abigail said.
 
The Rockets and Navigators will showcase their leadership talents to middle schoolers from central and western Nebraska when they travel to the Grand Island conference. Alyssa said that will give them another chance to share enriching moments with people who care about SkillsUSA.
 
“I really enjoy SkillsUSA because of the community that it brings,” Alyssa said. “SkillsUSA is really appealing to people that have a drive for their future, and as such it means that everyone that joins truly wants to be there. It is very difficult to describe how this affects the camaraderie that is SkillsUSA, but if I had to, I would say that it is incredible.”

To learn more about SkillsUSA and other career and technical education activities at LPS, visit our website at https://home.lps.org/cte/student-organizations/.
 
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