Information and Photos contributed by Dan Cosgrove
Students in the Calhoun County Middle School’s manufacturing and technology career exploration pathway spent part of this year developing a CMHS Drone Team. During the second semester, students formed the team, practiced, and competed at Fairmont State University.
The team is made up of s
even team members:
Team Captain and Boys’ Team Leader: Tucker Sampson
Girls’ Team Leader: Aniah Davis
Pilots:
Addison Collins
Kayleigh Cunningham
Anessia Kerby
Gavin Hicks
Coby Staples
After the students competed, they ran a class and a demonstration about the drones for the school’s recent Student Interest Day. They have taught the other 
members of the manufacturing and technology pathway how to operate drones and allowed them to fly them.
They did an outreach activity with CMHS special needs students, allowing them to fly the drones.
The students look forward to identifying more ways they can expand their team and experience other robotics opportunities.
Career pathway experiences at Calhoun Middle High School are mixed-grade student-driven career exploration periods that meet each day. Students are given the opportunity to switch pathways at each semester or continue digging more deeply into the pathway they started in. Students take on community projects through the lens of the pathway they are exploring. This is one way that Calhoun Middle High School uses to pursue the Empowerment Academy protocols that suggest that students explore careers, take on place-based projects, and gain an entrepreneurial mindset informed by iteration and persistence.