While most high school students are still figuring out where to start their future, three Innovation Campus students are building more than a plan. They are constructing a house.
"We're all gonna live in houses, so learning how to put a doorknob on is pretty valuable," construction instructor Jim Dosky said.
It's not just academic. These students pull wire through wooden framing they built and install plumbing that will really be used.
This year's Infrastructure Engineering class at the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus is building a home for a family in Berthoud through a collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. The house, a double-wide home, was the central project for the semester and is expected to be finished next semester.
"They get to be a jack of all trades, so to speak," Dosky said.
He said that what is unique is the exposure to different jobs, which helps students determine which jobs they are most passionate about.
The way the class is pitched, it can be taken as an elective or as a post-secondary job opportunity, Dosky said.
The Cherry Creek Innovation Campus caters to all Cherry Creek High School students, allowing them to explore various trades or receive college or career preparation, ranging from hospitality to computer sciences and engineering.
Understanding electric flows in wires, mapping a building's plan geometrically and figuring out how to prevent rain or snow from leaking into a partially finished construction project while working through the winter are just some of the challenges the students in the class had to overcome.
The single-home project began in October, and the house will remain half-finished throughout the summer. Students will complete it next semester and then start a new one.
"It paints the picture of the final product before they start the frame," The other construction instructor, Mike Degitis, said. "They've got a 3D design that they're familiar with, and now they're going to see the blueprints that feed into the final product."
Although Degitis said it was an unintentional consequence, he said it will work out better for the following students this way.
"It's conceptually challenging to go from 2D to 3D," Dosky said. "Especially when they're young. They've never once thought where their electricity comes from, or what's behind the drywall."
The students began with a bare-bones blueprint for the house layout, and then they were required to interpret and build it.
"A student knows that if this wall is here and these breaks are here, then there's a window," Dosky said. "They have to interpret this from the plan. That's the general, they don't get anything else."
The class consisted of nearly 40 students working on the house. Degitis connected with Habitat for Humanity to determine their needs, and he proposed making it a double-wide to keep all the students busy with work.
Both teachers were enthusiastic to announce the success and hard work of their students, while three of those students took charge.
"They are our specialty contractors," Degitis said. "They're students who have excelled at their craft."
Reid Roelfsema, Quinn Crotty and Aiden Wills each found their niche, with Reid as the electrician, Aiden as the plumber and Quinn, who was dubbed an electrician by his instructors, but he said he enjoyed doing it all.
"There's no test for it," Dosky said. "It's just, as we're doing it, they're taking on more and more of the role, stepping deeper and deeper into it until we know this is what they really like."
For Reid, he said the hands-on learning was what he loved most about being in the class. He doesn't just learn to install drywall, he gets to do it immediately.
"If I get told you got to do this that way, I'll forget it by the time I do it," he said. "But if I actually go out and do it, I remember it."
Reid also said he didn't like how precise plumbing had to be, so electrical work was what sparked his interest because he could improvise more, while Aiden said mapping out the plumbing was more of his style.
Another aspect that makes the class so enjoyable is the trust and responsibility they are given, all three students said. All students get to decide where they want to work, and then they are instructed and trusted to work with heavy-duty machinery.
"We get to run saws, we get to have all manner of dangerous stuff," Reid said. "The level of trust is also what makes this."
Dosky and Degitis said that the students were able to do everything on their own, except for getting on the roof. Dosky said the only reason they didn't let them do that was because it is time-consuming to get one person harnessed up properly.
The students said they had to make lasting decisions and learn to rework and move forward after a mistake or after a change of plans. Reid said that the house was initially supposed to have a crawl space, but they decided to make a basement instead, which required them to make changes. He also had a dining room light moved, which caused him to redo a day and a half of work.
"It gives you a much greater understanding of how the work is done and why," Reid said.
Reid said he already has a job as an electrician, thanks to Degitis, and he has been applying some of the techniques he's learned back at the school. Aiden and Quinn said they are both hoping to get jobs in similar work.
All three students said they have been using their knowledge at home, and their families are loving it. They said they hope they will be around to see the family's faces when they move into their new home sometime next year.
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