Jayden Freitas will be the first to admit she never pictured herself spending time around landfills and storm drains. So when her science teacher encouraged her to join a new Environmental Resources program at West Park High School in Roseville – one that involved getting a behind-the-scenes look at the city’s utilities – she was skeptical.
“Imagine a teen girl riding in garbage trucks?” she laughed. “That genuinely does not match.”
Still, she trusted her teacher and signed up – and it changed everything.
Now a rising senior, Freitas is pursuing two Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways at once: Professional Photography and Environmental Resources. At first glance, the pairing might seem unlikely. But for Freitas, the two disciplines have become deeply intertwined – and together they’ve helped shape her into a student that prospective employers are already competing to hire.
“I was never a science person,” she said. “If you told my eighth-grade self I’d be into science, I would have thought I was crazy.”
Building a Pathway from the Ground Up
The Environmental Resources pathway was developed through a collaboration between the Roseville Joint Union High School District and the City of Roseville, with support from a Strong Workforce Program grant. With a growing need for skilled workers to maintain essential systems – from electric and water to wastewater and trash – the program connects students to stable, in-demand careers that often offer strong pay right out of school.
Rainer Kenney, a science teacher at West Park, built the program from the ground up, completing more than a thousand hours of internships across the city’s utilities to understand the work firsthand and identify the skills employers need most.
“It’s the stuff that just exists in the background,” Kenney said. “People don’t really think about it until something breaks – but it’s some of the most important work in our community.”
The resulting three-course pathway blends classroom instruction with hands-on learning – with field projects like testing water quality in local creeks and building solar panels to site visits across the city’s utilities.
Freitas eagerly jumped in. During her internship with the city’s waste management and stormwater collections unit, she conducted organics compliance checks at local businesses, created outreach materials for new recycling regulations, and mapped stormwater drainage lines using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) — a technology used to map and analyze systems like water infrastructure and environmental resources.
She also stepped into a leadership role as a teacher’s assistant, breaking down complex GIS concepts into clear, step-by-step guides for students with special needs and helping adapt materials for non-native English speakers.
Making the Invisible Work, Visible
Through it all, Freitas relied on what she calls her other superpower: photography.
Inspired by her experiences, Freitas centered her Photography capstone project on a photo essay capturing the places and people in utilities who quietly support everyday life in Roseville. Her images span the local landfill and mixed-waste facility, portraits of refuse drivers, waste sorters, wildlife control specialists, and support staff working behind the scenes.
“I started to realize how many people it takes to keep a city running and how little we actually see them,” she said. “I wanted to show the work that’s happening all around us that most people never stop to think about.”
Kenney emphasized that the project was entirely driven by Freitas. “This is her project – everything she did was 100% her idea,” he said. Her initiative has already paid off – several of the supervisors she had photographed and built relationships with have offered her jobs before she’s even graduated.
As she enters her senior year, Freitas is eager to complete the Environmental Resources capstone project, where students design projects that give back to their community or environment. She’s interested in continuing to work with GIS and hopes to build a future in environmental services.
For someone who once believed science wasn’t for her, that transformation is striking.
Utilities may not be the most glamorous field, but Freitas is proof that keeping an open mind can lead somewhere unexpected yet meaningful.
Her advice to other students? “Try everything and talk to everyone, even when it’s uncomfortable,” she said. “You never know who people know — and you never know if you’ll end up loving it.”
Photo of Western Placer Waste Management Authority staff by Jayden Freitas. Click here to visit her Professional Photography capstone project highlighting the Environmental Resources pathway.