Business, Civic Leaders Invite ECHS Students To Pitch Ideas

MARYSVILLE – Sometimes you need all the brains and ideas you can get.

With that in mind, a number of local civic and business leaders were invited Friday to give presentations at the Marysville Early College High School, where they asked the students to help with solving some of the real world problems that business owners and government officials face on on a daily basis.

Marysville’s Public Service Director Jeremy Hoyt was on hand Friday at ECHS looking for the students’ input on how the city should deal with upgrading the Five Points intersection. Melanie Ziegler from Memorial Hospital of Union County said the hospital has a problem with IV infusion pumps that seem to wander off, while Adam Hodnichak of the Union County Foundation simply needs some ideas on how better to create more parking spaces in a parking lot that is already in use.

“(The students) learned about the authentic problems that our community partners face in their careers,” ECHS Principal Jennifer Hinderer said. “We really wanted the kids to engage in our ‘design cycle’ with authentic problems in the community.”

So, with the help of ECHS Assistant Principal Lisa Nemeth and Internship Coordinator Tammy Cooper, Ms. Hinderer put the word out to the students that the business owners and civic leaders needed their help. The questions and problems that the presenters are looking for help with were given to the students last Tuesday and Wednesday, and each student could sign up for as many as three different “seminars” that were conducted Friday.

To Ms. Hinderer’s, Ms. Nemeth’s and Ms. Cooper’s pleasant surprise, 450 students signed up. Ms. Hinderer and Ms. Nemeth reported that they heard little-to-no griping from the students about the meetings. In fact, they continued, the students who signed up talked and reflected on these real-world problems with teachers between the seminars, and groups of four of five started working on some of the problems presented that very day.

“The community has problems that are not as simple as multiple choice,” Ms. Nemeth said. “We have problems that we are facing in our careers and we have to say ‘OK, how do I solve this?’”

In making these decisions, Ms. Nemeth went on, all of the knowledge and all the skills that students have learned in school must be applied.

“The heart of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education is processing that ‘design cycle’ that we have: They identify the problem, they start to plan a solution, they create a solution and then communicate that out,” Ms. Nemeth said. “We want our students to have a really authentic experience in problem solving.”

“Our adults and community partners were amazing,” Ms. Nemeth went on. “They talked (to the students) like professionals, and the kids responded to that, lived up to that, and really carried themselves like professionals today.”

And the community partners weren’t just there for show. They were truly asking for some new and bright ideas and will be returning to the ECHS in December for the students’ input on the difficulties they face.

Ms. Nemeth said that all the problems are not expected to be solved by the students, noting that local leaders have been wrestling with some of these knotty issues for some time and quite often there are no easy answers. If that were the case, Ms. Nemeth said, the problem faced would have already been solved.

But who knows? Maybe one, or a group of students could come up with solutions that no one has considered before.

At least 15 civic and business leaders think it’s worth giving the students a shot.

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The following are a list of the organizations/businesses that participated at ECHS Friday, the person who represented the organization/business, and the problem/question that was posed to the students.

– Chamber of Commerce, Savannah Allen, ‘Housing/Workforce Challenges, identify creative ways to encourage people to come work and live in our community.’

– City of Marysville, engineer Jeremy Hoyt, ‘Are you creative and a problem solver? Please help us create a solution to fix Five Points for today and the future.’

– Drive.Ohio, Rick Granger, ‘How can we use technology to move people and cargo between places not usually served by surface transportation or existing aviation?’

– Erica Goodwin, Goodwin Services, LLC., ‘General contractors use sub-contractors to complete construction in each of their areas of expertise. What are some possible solutions to this ongoing issue?’

– Heart of Unlimited Boundaries (HUB), Rocky Grimes, ‘In short, design a controller for a small remote-control toy that can be operated using only one hand.’

– Heritage Cooperative, Jim Christel, ‘Our vision is to be the partner of choice by enabling our more than 500 employees to provide superior customer experiences. How can we do this?’

– Honda Marysville, Greg Beecher, ‘What incentives can be used to bring high interest not only in our service center but in the dealership?’

– i9 Sports, Steve Cox, ‘How do we get kids interested in continuing to play sports past the age of 11?’

– ReMax, ‘Housing issues with the realty business.’

– Marysville Division of Police, Nate Sachs, ‘In promoting public safety how can we recruit and maintain our labor force?’

– Memorial Hospital of Union County, Melanie Ziegler, ‘Infusion pumps are a necessity but never in the right place when needed. How can you develop a system that tracks real time location within a defined proximity?’

– Nestle, Tessy Olson, ‘Help us to figure out an IT issue we have using two different apps to make approvals digital and streamlined.’

– Richwood Bank, Kevin Ackerman, ‘How does a company keep hackers from damaging systems or stealing money and information?’

– Personal Fitness, Levi Klingler, ‘An incredible question of fitness.’

– Union County Foundation, Adam Hodnichak, ‘The physical area in our building is not working for our increasing number of staff. Is there a way you could determine some plans to use the space more efficiently?’