Students get lesson in trades
Aurora College program gives students a glimpse into the world of trades
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, March 16, 2017
DEH CHO
Twenty-three students from the Deh Cho got hands-on training in the trades during a four-day trip to Fort Smith.
Echo Dene School's Chase Berreault participates in a trades training course at Aurora College in Fort Smith. - photos courtesy of Aurora College
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The students, coming from Fort Providence, Fort Simpson and Fort Liard, gathered in Fort Smith to take part in Aurora College's Thebacha campus trades awareness program.
The program ran March 6 to 10. While there, students experienced plumbing, electrical, heavy-duty mechanics and carpentry.
This was the second year the program has been offered for the region. Janie Hobart, the program co-ordinator, said she was happy to see how many youth decided to attend.
"We're quite delighted with that," she said.
"We are always trying to find ways to encourage kids to look at the trades as an option."
The hands-on intensive training was tailored to each discipline. Those interested in electrical work were led to an area where a mock house had been built and asked to place light switches and plug-ins.
"They actually had to wire them and make them work," Hobart said. That gave them the chance to make mistakes, correct those mistakes and learn from them.
At one point, Hobart watched as the students placed an electrical box on a stud right next to a door.
"The instructor said to them, 'Most doors, once they go in, have trim around them, so the trim is going to cover one of those switches,'" she recalled.
Little lessons like those are also some of the most important, she said.
In plumbing, students learned to thread pipes and also learned how a toilet is put together.
Gender was no barrier to the experience, either. Hobart said she watched one Grade 8 student put all her effort into the project at hand.
"She had to work at it, but she was right in there threading pipe," Hobart said.
Heavy-duty mechanics ran students through exercises in how to make and then splice a brake line to attach a trailer to a truck.
Carpentry students made tool caddies and cutting boards, wrapping up their week by crafting small treasure boxes.
"They were all really nice boxes, and the kids seemed to take a great deal of pride in it," Hobart said.
The week culminated in a trades-on-trades competition, Olympics-style, with plumbing coming out on top.
The plumbing instructor, Hobart said with a laugh, was ecstatic.
"It's College 101. I think they had a great time, and we had wonderful chaperons for all three communities," she said.
"This gives them something to think about - maybe this is something (they) would want to do."
