In Port News 25/05/2015
A new Port of Long Beach website designed to encourage Long Beach youths to pursue careers related to trade, engineering or other professions connected to the harbor is now online.
The new Port of Long Beach Academy website’s content includes videos highlighting professionals working in one of seven career: civil engineer, computer analyst, electrician, environmental specialist, freight forwarder, international trade specialist and land surveyor.
The website also provides contact information for organizations that may help students and job seekers find employment or training, as well scholarships and internships.
“Students can see the real people that are doing these jobs and where they come from, what they do and why they love what they do,” said Michael Gold, director of communications for the Port of Long Beach.
Gold showed the site to Long Beach Unified School District students and educators Wednesday evening during the port’s Celebrating Education event honoring scholarship winners and students who have earned internships. The event took place at Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.
One of the video segments features Zeph Varley, who is the senior engineer working on the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project, narrates a video sequence in which he shares about growing up playing with toys like Lego and Lincoln Logs as a boy, to developing a proficiency in math and science to working as a civil engineer.
“The best part about civil engineering, for me, is that it starts out with a two-dimensional drawing that actually gets constructed in three dimensions. You get to see physically, something that was designed on paper turn into a real physical construction project,” Varley says in the video.
Gold said that although students attending Long Beach schools grow up in a community where ports are an important part of the economy, there is some concern that youths are not really aware of potential job opportunities around the harbor unless they have family members working in a trade-related job.
“The port’s kind of a black box if you don’t know what’s happening there,” he said.
The Port of Long Beach Academy site also includes sections for teachers who may be curious to find information on how to tour the port, incorporate port-related topics into their lesson plans or participate in “externships.”
Externships are a new educational program at the port in which Long Beach Unified School District teachers can spend five days of their summer vacation visiting port facilities and meeting people who work at the harbor as a means to developing lesson plans that may help their students learn more about life on the waterfront.
Wilson High School teacher Wendy Salaya is part of the port’s first group of externs, which is scheduled to assemble in late June. She said she is interested in incorporating topics focused on the Port of Long Beach into Advanced Placement classes on macroeconomics, which already include lessons on international trade, comparative advantage and foreign exchange markets.
“It takes it beyond the textbook and makes it a live experience,” Salaya said.
