While in previous years, students in construction classes at South Sioux City High School made clocks or built cabinets, this year, according to what siouxcityjournal tells MHProNews, they are building a modular home. Instructor Joe Krajicek said practicality was the momentum behind the new project. “We started looking at ways we could prepare our kids and started thinking about what we could do that would be more realistic,” he said. They were also involved in the initial planning and blueprints for the modular home.

Local professional tradesmen have come by the class and given students insights into possible careers in the trades. “They’re the next labor force,” he said. “We’re teaching relevant things the local work force is short on.”

Even so, students who are not interested in the trades will have a better idea of how to do upkeep on their own homes in the future. One student said if he has kids he will know how to build a playhouse.

The students are doing the plumbing and wiring as well as installing the windows, doors, the flooring, cabinetry, curtains, even the outside masonry. Their work is evaluated the same as any contractor would check his employees work.

Krajicek tells his students to show him not only that they can do the work, but that they can show a classmate how to do it correctly. Mistakes are part of the learning process. “When you screw something up and you have to spend your whole day fixing it, you aren’t going to make that mistake again,” he said. ##

(Photo credit: whio-tv–Upper Valley Career Center–student built modular home)

Article submitted by Matthew J. Silver to Daily Business News-MHProNews.