Hi Pam, Wow! You covered a lot of material in your forum response and it is all good advice. The more you can involve your students in the field and the future the more successful and directed they will be. The use of the field trips, guest speakers and business/industry standards(field boards) helps to make the students' efforts worth it. They can see the end result of all of their efforts. Thank you for sharing your efforts in this area. I know your students are well served as a result of your bringing the community to their classroom. Gary