STUDENTS ARE BUSY IN BEGINNING HEALTH OCCUPATIONS TECHNOLOGY

(November 16, 2007) . . .The Indiana County Technology Center Health Occupations Technology (HOT) students and their instructors have been very active so far this year! Field trips, blood drives, and a few innovative additions to their curriculum have had the students excited and busy!

The HOT students and their instructors visited the Carnegie Science Center on October 26. Students spent the day exploring a new exhibit called “Bodies,” designed to showcase the human anatomy.

In this exhibit, real bodies, or cadavers, are preserved to show unseen parts of the body. Systems of the body are shown by galleries. Galleries include: the skeletal gallery, muscular gallery, nervous system, circulatory system, digestive/respiratory system, reproductive and urinary system, fetal gallery, and the treated body gallery.

Nellie Sleasman, a junior from Indiana High School described the experience. “It was a great learning experience.”

The Bodies Exhibition at the Carnegie Science Center will run until May 4, 2008. If you would like to know more about the exhibit, visit bodiestheexhibition.com

Another field trip took the students to Health Care Career Week at Career Link in Indiana for a special event called “Technology in Healthcare.” The event was sponsored by the PA Health Careers, the Indiana County Health Care Consortium, and the Tri-County Workforce Investment Board.

HOT students were busy last week when they organized and helped the Red Cross hold a blood drive on November 8. Along with helping the community, the blood drive offers HOT students an opportunity for scholarships by attaining a donor goal. The drive began at 8:30 A.M. and ended at 2:30 P.M. ICTC Students who were at least 17 years old and had parent permission had a chance to sign-up and donate blood. The public was also invited.

Did everyone see the attractive bracelets with the multi-colored beads worn around ICTC? HOT students could be seen making and selling Cancer Awareness bracelets to raise awareness about cancer and its various forms. The bracelets were decorated with beads representing a type of cancer. The different colors represented kidney, brain, bone, ovarian, lung, leukemia, prostate, and other types of cancers. Fifty percent of the $800.00 proceeds will be donated to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

Finally, HOT is participating in a Workforce Leadership grant that gives the students the chance to participate in three different science experiments: DNA extraction, bacterial transformation, and immunology. This grant was sponsored by the Greater Johnstown’s Career and Technology Center, Mount Aloysius college, and Pennsylvania Highlands Community College.

The students in HOT are excited to be studying innovative features of their program under the direction of their instructor, Mrs. Dianne Miller, and instructional assistant, Mrs. Tara McClellan.

For more information on the ICTC, click here.

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