The animal science program supports other programs in Arlington, some within the school system and others from the community.  Some of these programs have career days or other activities that allow young students to explore career pathways.  The attached thank you letters are evidence that we are supporting career pathway exploration for students too young to take the high school-level animal science program.  In addition, we participate in all 9th grade tours and 8th grade assemblies.  In both, tours and assemblies, we meet with students to tell them about our courses and what career pathways exist in our field.

Both courses incorporate career pathway exploration into the curriculum.  The state approved competencies also require that all CTE courses incorporate career pathways with the "All Aspects of Industry" competencies.  The attached rubric is part of the career exploration unit for Technical Animal Science and guides student's presentations.   

In addition to our normal curricula we offer students interested in Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) the opportunity to complete SDV 100.  This is NOVA's required class for all of its degree students. Students successfully completing this course earn college credit from NOVA.   For students who have already earned American Red Cross certification in Pet First Aid and CPR, we offer Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) courses called Animals in Disaster (A&B).  Students successfully completing these federal government courses earn college credit from Federick Community College.

Attached are emails between the animal science program and a NOVA counselor exploring the idea of giving college credit for the FEMA Animals in Disaster courses we have some students take.  Some other colleges already give credit or articulation for these on-line courses.  This collaboration would benefit our students and the college. Several options are being explored.

The thank you letters illustrate how we support school counselors by participating in events that explore career options.  The first illustrates what students say they learned from one of our visits to a school event and the second illustrates that we support counselor requests to host students too young to take our courses so that they can explore careers in our field.

The attached web links are to our program website.  We have updated it to provide guidance to counselors and other interested parties about what material is covered in each course, as well what type of student typically takes the class.