A hands-on construction experience for students at Future Building expo
Carolyn Butterworth heard that the construction industry is going to need 160,000 new workers. So, the Grade 8 teacher at Whitchurch Highlands Public School, north of Toronto, took her students to Future Building, a job fair organized by the Ontario Construction Secretariat (OCS).
“Many of the students are interested in the trades,” she said.
“They know that the workforce will be very difficult to enter when they are done high school.”
Butterworth spoke with the Daily Commercial News at the recent Future Building exhibition held in the Better Living Centre on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. She noted the event gives students hands-on experience.
“They are exposed to all different types of jobs in the trades,” she said.
“They really like the hands-on stuff. I actually have some girls who have tried welding, who would never have had that opportunity, unless they decided to take it in high school, which I’m sure they probably aren’t.”
OCS expected about 8,000 students to attend over the three-day event, said Sean Strickland, chief executive officer for the organization, which includes representatives from government, unions and general contractors.
“It’s very different from traditional career fairs where kids go to a booth and get a brochure,” Strickland said. “Here they actually get to cut some glass, weld some pipe, they get to set some tile, they get to walk an I-beam, they get to lay brick, they get to hammer and cut some wood and work with metal.”
John Dametto is in the electrical trade and currently teaches shop at West Credit Secondary School in Mississauga, Ont. Along with another teacher, he brought 39 shop students to Future Building, to “convince students that trades are the way to go.”
He said it is “great” that they get hands-on experience and it helps reinforce what he tells his students.
Exhibitors included unions representing a variety of skilled construction trades, including carpenters, iron workers, welders, crane operators and boilermakers.
“We get teachers who are interested in supplying information to their students,” said Blair Allin, health and safety and upgrading instructor at Boilermakers Local 128, who manned his union’s booth at Future Building.
“I would think any youth that is looking for employment in any occupation should seriously consider becoming a welder. If you look at all the different construction trades at this trades fair, whether it is boilermakers, pipefitters, iron workers, sheet metal workers, millwrights, they all require welders. And that is a skill that you can use anywhere in the world.”