PLAINS- The Plains after school program held one of their first activities at Plains-Paradise Rural Fire.

The event was to promote hands on real-world experience and job training. The students had the opportunity to use the jaws-of-life for extraction of people at an accident scene and learned techniques for putting out fires with hoses and extinguishers.

The high school has their after school program funded through a piggy backed grant with Hot Springs School District. The 21st Century Grant program for $60,000 has been split between the two schools.

The grant is intended to be used for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). High School science teacher Carl Benson thought it would be a good idea for the students to get hands on experience in their hometown.

“It was sort of my idea,” Benson said. “As the science teacher, I thought it would be a good way for students to learn, and catch things on fire.”

Participation was low for the event, after having nearly 30 students sign up to visit the firehouse, only six showed up.

“I think the weather may have played a role in how few people showed up,” After School Program Director Betty Taylor said. “We are just getting started and many students aren’t sure what all we do. We hope the students here today will encourage others to get involved.”

Taylor would like to grow the program from its infancy to a place where everyone wants to go after school.

“The idea is to help kids in rural areas get experience in STEM,” Taylor said. “We are trying to do job shadowing and go on college tours.”

On November 14th Plains is teaming with Hot Springs to travel to Bozeman and Helena for college visits and on the 18th the schools will travel to Dillon and Butte to visit more college campuses. Students will have the opportunity to see a college campus and get a feel for the college, something Taylor said is important.

“When you visit a school, you get a feel for if you can see yourself going there,” Taylor said. “I prefer visiting smaller campuses because it is easier for the students here to adjust. It is what they are used to.”

These will be single day events for the students. It will make for early mornings and a late night.

“Hot Springs will come down and we will leave about 6 a.m.,” Taylor said. “We should get back around 10 p.m. It won’t be bad for Hot Springs since they don’t have school on Friday, but unfortunately Plains does.”

The trips were planned around the sports season so student athletes could participate in the trips to college campuses.

The Plains students were given a survey from Taylor to see which activities they would like to participate in. Overwhelmingly, ice fishing, hiking, and fly-fishing took the cake. Taylor is looking for an instructor from the community to help with this endeavor.

“Community involvement is important,” Taylor said. “Like the firefighters out here today, we want our students to see how to give back to their community.”

Taylor’s goal for the program is to get students prepared for college, trade programs, or the working world after high school.