PSLA Students Gain Real Experience During Search & Rescue Field Trip

Students in Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways at PSLA at Fowler had the opportunity to put their classroom learning to the test during a real life search and rescue scenario at Springside Farm in Fabius.
 
EMT, Fire Rescue, Forensic Science, Geospatial Technology and Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) students worked together to engage in a training exercise, each tasked with their own roles in finding and rescuing a ‘victim’ hurt somewhere on the farm property. Geospatial students geocached and helped provide directions to the drone operators, who guided the first responders through a corn maze to find the victim.
 
“It was cool, because it shows how all the CTE programs can work together and how important our individual roles are in real life,” Geospatial Technology senior Shakira Santos said. “It was exciting to put what we learned into practice… it helped us see how important what we’re learning really is. And the communications skills we learned there will be applicable no matter what type of work I end up doing in the future.”
 
“It was fun to be outside instead of in the classroom,” RPAS senior Hector Ferrer-Menendez said. “We usually use the drones to take photos, but there, we had to scan a scene to find a victim. It was a different experience and we learned more hands-on. It helped me learn how actual drone pilots would work in the field.”
 
Teachers say that new perspective is what keeps them staging events like this annual trip.
 
“The Fire-Rescue and EMT CTE classes are already a very unique blend of rigorous academics and authentic, hands-on activities,” Fire-Rescue Instructor Anthony Jarvis said. “However, any task completed within the school grounds is often seen as just another school assignment; mannequins and classroom based emergencies can only bring the students so far. Staging an event like our annual Search and Rescue field trip brings the necessity of the skills and content knowledge to a whole new level for the students. They provide a truly unparalleled learning experience. Students become immersed in the scenarios, they see a ‘true’ emergency in front of them and know that they are now the ones that need to devise plans and act on them in order to ‘save’ their patient. That is the moment that the classroom material comes alive!”