Students learn new tools at camp
Program offers new generation chance to explore in-demand skilled trades
Audrey Oakey knows her way around a toolbox.
Her father is a carpenter who built the family home and Oakey would often help out.
“I’ve used hammers, drills and screwdrivers before,” the 13-yearold said.
She’s also handy with a Dremel rotary tool, which she uses for the beach glass art she likes to make. This week, Oakey is looking to expand her knowledge at a new skilled trades camp for girls offered by the Greater Essex County District School Board at Herman Academy.
She was one of 11 girls from Grades 6, 7 or 8 who signed up for the five-day camp offering a chance to learn how to weld and change a tire among other skills.
“I’m hoping to learn more about cars and some of the machines my dad uses at work. I’m looking forward to this being a bit more hands-on,” said Oakey, who will enter Grade 8 at Herman this fall. Angelo Ciarlariello-Bondy is a teacher consultant with the board and one of the organizers of three new camps that launched this week at Herman and Tecumseh Vista.
Herman is hosting the all-girls’ skilled trades camp and a construction camp open to both boys and girls.
Tecumseh Vista is holding an allgirls entrepreneurship and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) camp. Two of the camps were funded through a ministerial grant program aimed at experiential learning. The all-girls skilled trades camp did not receive ministry funding so the board found a way to provide the camp at no cost to those participants as well. “We’re doing these to try and meet the demand in the skilled trades industry and to get girls into untraditional trades as well,” Ciarlariello-Bondy said.
The board targeted the senior elementary grades “because students need to make decisions at a younger age now on courses and pathways for high school,” Ciarlariello-Bondy said. “This is a way to get them into the high school and see what opportunities there are.” Ed Kotevich, a tech teacher at Herman, is instructing the skilled trades campers while Trent Durocher, a tech teacher from Kennedy, is handling the construction camp. Madison Wessel was one of four girls who signed up to learn more about construction. Wessel likes to make puzzles and ornaments with a scroll saw her grandfather gave her.
“I want to learn how to use some of the bigger machines,” said the 14-year-old who is headed to Grade 9 at Vista in the fall.
The campers were deep into learning how to make a wooden chair before lunchtime Monday. Field trips will also be part of their experience this week. The skilled trades campers will tour Cavalier Tool and CentreLine. The construction campers are headed to Lee Valley to build a project there and the young entrepreneurs are touring Windsor Hackforge and the EPICentre.
We’re doing these to try and meet the demand in the skilled trades industry ... to get girls into untraditional trades.