With the third term of the school year coming to an end, many class projects have also come to a close. All around OHS, students are wrapping up projects that they have been working on in their classes that have applied the knowledge they have learned and allowed them to learn even more. One of the classes that has recently wrapped up a unique project is the Entrepreneurship class taught by business teacher Phil Palacios.
“We did an entrepreneurship spotlight on four different entrepreneurs that started in St. Louis. We did Ted Drewes, Schnucks, Imo’s and Enterprise Rent-A-Car,” Palacios said.
The purpose of this project was for the students to be able to learn more about entrepreneurship and also be able to see examples of successful entrepreneurs in the area.
“We all split into four different groups assigned by Mr. P and each of us had to do a different business… Each of the groups did research and made a poster and put it all together…” Gavin Stropnik (11) said. “We had to present to the class and we had to get Mr. P’s feedback ,and we got Mr. Herrick’s feedback and now our posters are hanging up on the wall in there…”
Last year, Palacios ran this project with just Ted Drewes because he wanted to add a local flair. He really enjoyed that the project allowed the students to be creative.
“My favorite aspect, honestly, was seeing the students’ creativity, like speaking of Imo’s, they did their presentation in red, black and green ink for each different section which are their colors,” Palacios said.
Some students also really enjoyed the creativity aspect of the project.
“My favorite part was working on the poster because you could bring out your creativity,” Brandon Hernandez Ramirez (11) said.
Other students enojoyed the collaborative nature of the project.
“[My favorite part was] working with people. We all split off in our Ted Drewes parts. We had someone who focused more on the drawing aspect of the poster, and then we had people do research and stuff,” Stropnik said. “…It was really fun doing all that teamwork stuff.”
Stropnik was a part of the group that covered Ted Drewes, which was deemed the class favorite. Not only was he part of the group that received the highest grade, he also was named Sales Manager.
“During my presentation, Mr. P just really liked how vocal I was and how I was talking to everybody,” Stropnik said. “…We have a few people who we decided to put in the sales group with me.”
Not only were the students learning about the entrepreneurs, but Palacios was also learning details about St. Louis he had never known before.
“I mean, even I started learning things like I didn’t realize that Imo’s was an actual person’s last name. I just thought it was a clever Italian name,” Palacios said. “…Just like those types of things that were kind of fun to find out as I started this project.”
For an entrepreneurship class, this project was definitely fitting and allowed students an even deeper look into the business world.
“Overall, I think it went pretty well and now we are getting back into sales and selling stuff and marketing,” Stropik said. “…And start putting stuff up eventually and selling clothes.”
