PLEASANTVILLE, N.J. (AP) - Oakcrest High School freshman Dominick Ciro and his classmates started their biomedical sciences class this year with the discovery of a dead body on the supply room floor.
“It was shocking,” Ciro said as he re-created blood spatter from the scene during a recent class. “But it’s also really cool” he told The Press of Atlantic City (https://bit.ly/1xaak7S).
The 31 students in the class will spend the year solving the mystery of what happened to the victim (a life-size dummy named Anna), as they learn about blood typing and spatter, DNA, fingerprinting, and genetic and medical disorders in the new biomedical sciences magnet program at the Mays Landing high school.
“It’s very hands on,” teacher Jaclyn Sarnese said. “They’ll be doing a lot of projects.”
Across the county at Absegami High School in Galloway Township, Brian Wastell’s students discussed their recent trip the 9/11 Museum in New York City as part of the new homeland security magnet program.
“It is very career-oriented,” Wastell said. “We’ll have field trips and speakers. We want to show students all the options they could have in these fields.”
Career-oriented magnet programs are not new, but they have traditionally been the focus of county vocational schools or charter schools such as Charter Tech High School for the Performing Arts in Somers Point, which last month dedicated a new addition.
As their popularity has grown, traditional high schools have also embraced them. Students still take the required curriculum but also take an elective class in the specialized magnet program. State-approved “choice” high schools, including Ocean City, Hammonton, Atlantic City and Cumberland Regional, have successfully used magnet programs to recruit students from other towns.
“High school has changed,” said Absegami Principal Jeri-Lynn Gatto. “We’re not pushing students in any one direction, but we are giving them options so that they will be better prepared when they graduate.”
The Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School District first offered two magnet programs at Cedar Creek High School in Egg Harbor City, which opened in September 2010. There are 62 freshmen in this year’s engineering magnet program and 42 in the environmental sciences program.
This year, Oakcrest and Absegami also each got a magnet program for incoming freshmen, which was open to students from all of the K-8 sending districts.
“It’s been so popular, we even had a call from a parent in Absecon,” said supervisor of curriculum and instruction Donna Blair, who had to explain to the disappointed parent that the program is currently open only to students within the district.
The biomedical sciences curriculum comes from Project Lead the Way, a national program in the STEM fields, or science, technology, engineering and math, which is also the program used in Cedar Creek’s engineering program.
When the biomedical program gets certified in two years, students will be able to get college credit for the courses. There are currently 31 freshmen in the program, who also take the required freshman biology class.
Blair said they chose programs based on student interest and jobs likely to be available to the students.
Absegami Vice Principal Brian Aron tells the story of how when they were researching the program they met an Oakcrest graduate at the William J. Hughes Technical Center who worked in the air crash division researching ways to make planes safer in the event of a crash. He said his background started as an electrician, but then in high school he took a field trip to the tech center in Egg Harbor Township, which led to an internship there.
Sarnese said the projects take time - she spent her prep period making the blood for the spatter testing and setting up the project - but the students get so involved that she is now looking for ways to make her biology classes more project-based.
So far, students discovered the pills found at their crime scene were aspirin and that the victim’s husband’s fingerprints were on a glass of orange juice. They also calculated the time of death.
Blair said the magnet programs at Cedar Creek and academy programs at the county vocational school have helped students become comfortable with the concept of going to a different high school than the one in their hometown. District officials visited the middle schools last year to promote the program, and several students are commuting.
Students must apply to the program, have at least a B average, write an essay explaining why they want to participate and get recommendation letters from teachers.
“They came to my school last year to tell us about it, and this is what I am interested in,” Hersi Jadav, 14, of Galloway, said as she dropped blood from a dropper to try to re-create the drops found at the scene in the Oakcrest classroom.
Adrianna Schofield, 14, of Mays Landing, admits she was reluctant to leave her friends, who would be going to Oakcrest, but she really wanted to be in the homeland security magnet program at Absegami.
“This program drove me enough to do it,” she said after class at Oakcrest. It’s about a 25-minute bus ride to school, but she sees the program as giving her a head start on plans to be a homicide detective.
Wastell developed the curriculum, which also meets other state requirements. The freshman class focuses on the homeland security mission of fighting terrorism, border security, and disaster preparation and response. The sophomore class will study forensic crime scene investigation, which will include a unit on using art and sculpture to identify and apprehend criminals. The third year will deal with financing, including the financial literacy state requirement, plus financial crimes such as the Bernie Madoff case, and the cost of terrorism and natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy.
Other planned courses include CSI/Physics in Law Enforcement, Advanced Homeland Security classes that will include a capstone research project, and an Introduction to Criminal Justice class that would eventually become a dual credit course with Richard Stockton College.
Wastell said the 25 students in his homeland security class have mixed interests, but all really want to be in the class, which makes it stimulating for him. Julianna Fortis, 14, of Galloway, is interested in recent history and homeland security. Robert Juniewicz, 14, of Galloway, would like to work for the FBI or CIA.
“The magnet does guide them, but it doesn’t force them (into a career path),” Aron said.
“It gives them a balance,” Gatto said. “They can still be high school students, but they can also think about their futures.”
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Information from: The Press of Atlantic City (N.J.), https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com
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