VICTORIA – The Construction Foundation of BC and School District 61 – Greater Victoria School District combined efforts in late April to provide students at 16 elementary schools in the area with a hands-on boat building workshop.
The students, whose parents are working under Tier 1 status during the pandemic, were introduced to a boat building workshop consisting of hands on building, Zoom conference calls with a wooden boat builder Trevor Henderson and First Nations artist Dean Heron and an opportunity to design their own projects. Working closely with the Pathways and Partnerships Department at SD 61, the Construction Foundation designed, delivered and coordinated the boat building workshop, complete with plans for constructing paper boat projects and providing supplementary learning opportunities for the workshop with a number of instructional and video conference content.
The Pathways and Partnerships District Team at SD 61 provides opportunities for students in the K-12 range the chance to explore and experience future careers and pathways through in-class activities, in community activities and eventually through professional avenues such as apprenticeships.
“Our department has had a partnership with the Construction Foundation for awhile now,” explained Lindsay Johnson, Vice President, Pathways and Partnerships with Greater Victoria School District 61. “We love [CFBC Director of Strategic Initiatives] Jordan and the CFBC team. Small conversations tend to lead to big things, such as this project.”
Sixteen of the total 27 elementary schools in the district took part in the boat building workshop. With a number of the students facing upwards of 12-hour days within the schools while their parents worked, providing an engaging and varied workshop was critical. Working with SD61’s District Team, the Foundation delivered a kiddie pool, paper boat template and materials required to complete the workshop to each school. The deliveries were followed up by providing a series of online ‘how-to’ videos for educators and coordinating Zoom interviews to provide additional information on the world of boat building for students.
With the unpredictable schedule of students and their families at the moment, video content was recorded and uploaded to YouTube so interested parties could view them at a time that worked best for them for them.
“In such an uncertain time this workshop really brought all these school sites together through a project that was meaningful for these students,” added Johnson. “Our school-based teams were so grateful and super excited to jump on board with this hands-on project that educated students on the career pathway of boat building.”
The success of this workshop has Johnson looking ahead to an expanded iteration of the project in the future as additional schools begin to open up to students for instruction in the weeks and months ahead.
“All of our elementary schools are eager to take part. We are hoping this could be a project in the hands of many more students both at school and home. It’s a project that can be challenging enough for grade five students, but also be adjusted to be challenging and engaging for younger students as well.”
DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN PAPER BOAT PROJECT FILES: http://ow.ly/t3yx50zEvYp
