The Alberta Teachers’ Association

PHOTO COURTESTY OF DEAN BISCHKE

The Northern Lights School Division’s Trades in Motion Mobile Trades Lab provides students with skills and the opportunity to express their creativity. Schools throughout the school district are adorned with sculptures and artwork created by students using the welding and cutting skills they learned in the mobile lab.

Mobile lab brings the trades to the students

What do you do when parents and students demand more chances for hands-on trades training, but your school lacks adequate facilities and equipment to provide it?

Such was the problem facing Northern Lights School Division No. 69, which is located in the heart of Alberta’s booming oilsands. A survey found that 65 per cent of high school students wanted more trades training; community stakeholders also indicated a need for more such training. Feedback and research showed support for introducing middle school students to trades.

The answer to meeting the needs of 5,800 students in 27 schools stretching from Cold Lake to Wandering River was the Trades in Motion Mobile Trades Lab. The lab is a trailer that expands to become a fully functioning metal fabrication facility that can be used at any of the division’s middle or high schools.

“The mobile lab allows us to offer more students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the trades, particularly at schools that may have been limited in what they could offer before due to their size and location,” explained Superintendent Roger Nippard. “We want every student in the division to have access to trades training, and the lab is integral to helping us do this.”

Community support for the concept was strong, and several community partners offered financial assistance and resources to help purchase the lab and develop programming. Community partners are the Alberta Motor Dealers’ Association, Canadian Natural Resources, Devon Canada Corporation, Imperial Oil, Kikino Métis Settlement, Kwiksilver, Portage College and Shell Canada.

The Rural Alberta Development Fund recognized the potential of the project as a means to strengthen community sustainability and approved a three-year grant for the division to develop programming and share what it learned with other Alberta jurisdictions. The program provides students with an enhanced orientation to career planning within the trades career cluster.

“Students gain appreciation for the trades by working in an authentic hands-on trades-related environment with a certified journeyman,” explained Dean Bischke, Mobile Trades Lab coordinator. “Students gain knowledge of workplace expectations and practices, job safety and employability skills.”

Ty Thompson, a Grade 8 student, spent time in the lab while it was at Kikino School last year, learning skills in plasma and oxy-acetylene cutting, MIG welding, grinding, project design and completion. He liked being able to try something new every time he went to the lab. “It makes me want to come to school every day,” said Thompson.

The students also learn what programs are available in high school to help them prepare for a career in the trades. “You get to do things that adults do,” Thompson said. “If you like it, you can do it when you’re older.”

The mobile lab allows students to see the connection between what they’re learning in school and what they will do with their lives after graduation, and it helps build relationships between students and future potential employers. “The program is an example of community working together to develop its potential from within,” said Bischke.

The hope is that the program will have a positive influence on high school completion rates and the number of students who transition to postsecondary institutions. “Providing students with early exposure to the trades allows them to start training for their career while still in high school,” explained Bischke. “Many will already have the courses and hours they need to go right into postsecondary training after high school.”

The mobile lab also gives students an opportunity to express their creativity. Schools throughout Northern Lights are adorned with sculptures and artwork created by students using the welding and cutting skills they learned in the mobile lab.

A two-year cycle will give all Grade 7 and 8 students in Northern Lights School Division the chance to partake in the program. As the lab moves from community to community, local high schools are encouraged to use the lab. A follow-up metal fabrication unit is available for high school students. Collaboration with local industry and postsecondary institutions has led to an expanded registered apprenticeship program and programming opportunities at the high school level.