SPENCERVILLE, OH (WLIO) - Charles River Laboratories in Spencerville has been continuing its mission to inspire local students to look into the world of STEM. Our Katie Honigford spoke with the site manager of Charles River to find out how they have been connecting with the community for this edition of our "Growing STEM Series".
Much like most of the world, Charles River Laboratories was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the field of working with and reaching out to local students.
"The fact that a lot of the students were remote at this point, that meetings were prohibited, gatherings on site here were prohibited, it became very difficult to have a strong outreach to students," stated Rusty Rush, site manager at Charles River Laboratories in Spencerville.
Of course, times have changed and now work is underway at Charles River to connect with those students to possibly start internships and bolster interest in the STEM fields that they have available.
"To get them here on site, to see what we do, to get involved with pharmaceutical research, I mean everybody uses some type of pharmaceuticals here has to go through a lot of extensive testing before it goes into the human population and for us to be able to get students here to see how that's done to really spark an interest in the sciences and pharmaceutical development is a great thing," added Rush.
Charles River has been involved with several STEM-related events locally, including sponsoring "Steam on the Quad" at OSU Lima back in September, an event for kindergarten through 8th graders to learn about science, technology, engineering, arts, and math through hands-on activities. They also were a gold sponsor for the 2023 Makerfest, with a booth at the event to show high schoolers what kinds of jobs they could go into if they look towards Charles River.
Being involved with these events is just part of the way that Charles River can encourage students to move forward in STEM.
"STEM is very important for our business because we are a science business. And the more young kids, high schoolers, junior highers that are interested in the sciences, the more they become interested in that aspect of it, the more possibilities for us to guide them into a career of science," said Rush.
Those with the laboratory say that students 18 years of age and older are able to apply for a part-time job at their facility. To see what jobs are available, log on to https://jobs.criver.com/
