Jamie Metzger
Biology and Agriscience instructor at Knox County Career Center
Metzger would love to be contacted about and to collaborate with other teachers on these topics: biotechnology, genetics, biofuels, biology, agriscience, STEM and some specific science programs offered to teachers and students.
What excites you about teaching?
I recently spoke to a student whom I had in APES for his senior year. He has always planned on becoming an oncologist and was going to major in biology as his undergrad major. He told me that when he registered for his college courses, he decided to go into Environmental Science as an undergrad, while still looking toward med school someday. He said he would never have even considered it until he took my class and that he valued everything he had learned, because it had forced him to really think about environmental situations and changes and how they affected him directly. That made my heart so happy! Having students tell you, even years later, how much influence you had on them during their time in high school makes teaching worth it!
How do you help students make the industry or real-world connection to what they’re learning?
Today, especially in science, we need to make as many real-life connections as possible to validate to students the WHY in what we are teaching and learning. Being at the Knox County Career Center, I am able to make the sciences very applicable to programs such as Sports Medicine, Health Tech, and Culinary Arts. Even in other lab programs that may not be directly connected to the sciences, we can still create real-life scenarios and hands-on experiences. As I teach ag science and work closely with the Landscaping program, I will be able to bring the GNG curriculum to life in my classroom as we discuss everything from soils to fertilizer to water quality to GMOs and biotechnology.
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