Animal Science students at the Niagara Career and Technical Education Center recently played pathologist to some dead Conures birds. Niagara Career and Technical Education teacher Todd Eick says the birds belonged to a friend and died of old age in his opinion, but wanted the students to see if they could uncover anything else that might have been going on with them medically that could have contributed to their demise. The students said they got a lot out of the exercise and found it fascinating to dissect the various parts to see what they could discover.
Mr. Eick is a new hire for the program and a welcome addition to the staff at Orleans/Niagara BOCES. Before coming to our career and technical education center he was a Technology educator at Albion for seven years, worked in industry for several years and then returned to education at Medina High School where he taught Agricultural Education for 14 years. He also runs a small llama and alpaca farm. “What is great is that this is a relatively new program and I am looking forward to evolving it into something that I want it to be,” he says. “One of my goals is to make the students global citizens and I am hoping to do some global traveling with them to expose them to other countries and how they manage their animals and agriculture.”
Mr. Eick says he is looking forward to building relationships with his classes. “They are outstanding students who are very eager to learn and are expressing to me what topics they would like to learn and I hope to build on the curriculum to accommodate that. Ideally I would love it if down the road my graduates stop in to see me and talk to the current students about what they have done with their education here. I am very thankful to the staff here who have made me feel welcome and especially my teaching assistant Melissa Wagner who is invaluable to me.”