50 Martin students focus on theater, design, science
Nearly 50 seventh- and eighth-graders made their way from Martin Middle School to Del Mar College’s East Campus to get a closer look at the college experience and some of the programs offered on Sept. 30. The Career Exploration field trip was developed by the Center for Progressive Studies and Culture as a way to hopefully keep middle schoolers interested in education and graduation from high school.
“Through the Center for Progressive Studies and Culture, a group of us decided to do something about the high school dropout rate here in Corpus Christi,” James Klein, a social sciences professor, said in a DMC news release. “We focused on Martin Middle School because we saw that it was an at-risk school. We decided that to be effective, we have to reach kids by seventh or eighth grade instead of high school because at that point a lot had checked out already.”
Seventh-graders who attended the field trip were given the opportunity to be hands-on with experiments in chemistry and biology at the Garcia Science Building, while the eighth-graders’ trip focused more on fine arts such as theater and design.
One of the activities students participated in was a theater workshop led by professor Carl Yowell, who encouraged students to raise their voices and commit to their parts by moving around and yelling.
“This was so fun,” said Yazmin Marti, an eighth-grader, as the day drew to a close.
