CARLIN – Building a house and wiring it with lights sounds like a task for a carpenter and electrician.
But for 12 students in Donita Duvall’s sixth grade STEM class at Carlin Combined Schools, it was an introduction to skills that could spark interest in STEM and lead to careers or jobs in the technical trade field when they get older.
Duvall started her students at the beginning of the semester learning the difference between two- and three-dimensional drawings, then moved into a refresher on series and parallel circuitry.
The sixth-graders created floor plans to a scale roughly one-half-inch to two or five feet and then they used lathes she cut down to the size they needed.
The spring project familiarized students with using tools and measurements.
“They had to measure the studs themselves and cut them, so they’re learning to use hand tools,” Duvall explained.
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Finally, they added parallel circuits to them using strings of colored lights. Each house had to have a certain number of rooms and a light in each room that switched off and on individually.
Although the students realized the amount of work that was involved in constructing a house with wiring, “they enjoyed doing the whole process,” Duvall said, adding she’s assigned it for many years.
“I did this way before STEM was cool,” she said. Years ago, her students in Owyhee built barns to present to tribal members.
The Carlin project was two-pronged for Duvall’s students: teaching them the steps it takes to build a house while giving them a taste of learning a trade and other options for future careers.
“I feel like the trades – plumbing, electrical and carpentry – we don’t put enough emphasis on that,” Duvall said. “We’ve talked about going to a trade school instead of going to college as an alternative. They say college isn’t always the answer for every student, but going to a trade school means they could have a decent income in a short amount of time.”
As the students wrapped up their projects before taking them to the school library for display on May 4, Duvall said her students learned other things as they worked on their houses.
“I heard them say, ‘I can’t believe I did this all by myself,’” Duvall recalled. “To me that’s pretty awesome because it does show they have that perseverance to get through it and finish.”
She said the firm due date helped her students “understand the responsibility of deadlines. ... Not wasting time has been a huge learning curve for them. Overall, I think it’s been a super good learning experience.”
“It was a lot and maybe some people think it’s asking too much, but I think you get what you ask for,” she added.
Duvall’s students also get a taste of STEM with other projects, including Lead the Way for automation and robotics.
The STEM class was an afterschool project, which Duvall has taught for three years.
“This is the first full year of it,” she said, calling the class a “work in progress” due the pandemic. Next year, she will add a STEM class for seventh- and eighth-graders.
Duvall’s class will have options to move forward in STEM with Carlin’s Career and Technical Education classes, including welding SkillsUSA, FCCLA and computer programming.