Building Skills and Giving Back

One of our favorite parts of summer Career Academies is seeing students take the skills they are learning and use them to make a difference in their community.

Students in COP ESD’s Building & Construction Trades Academy were challenged to design and build dog houses that could be donated to the Cheboygan County Humane Society.

And they did it from the ground up!

Using donated and repurposed materials, students designed their own dog houses, measured, framed, roofed, sided, and finished their projects themselves—putting the construction skills they learned throughout the summer into action.

The result? Four awesome dog houses ready to provide shelter for animals in our community! 

Projects like this are about so much more than learning how to build something. Students get to step back at the end and say, “I made that.” Even better, they know what they made is going to help someone—or in this case, some very lucky dogs—in their own community.

That sense of accomplishment and pride is exactly what we want students to experience through our Career Academies.

A huge thank you to everyone who donated materials and supported our students throughout the project, and to the Cheboygan County Humane Society for giving their work a wonderful home.

Skills learned. Confidence built. Community strengthened.

What happens when students get the opportunity to use newly learned skills to solve a real need in their community?

They build something that matters.

Students in COP ESD’s Building & Construction Trades Academy recently put their skills to work designing and constructing four dog houses for the Cheboygan County Humane Society.

Using donated and repurposed materials, students were responsible for their projects from design through construction. They measured, framed, roofed, sided, problem-solved, made adjustments, and ultimately saw their ideas become finished structures.

But the learning went well beyond construction skills.

Projects like this teach students how to plan, make decisions, solve problems, work independently, persevere when something doesn't go exactly as planned, and take ownership of the finished product—skills that matter in every workplace.

And there is another piece that may be even more important.

At the end of the project, these students could look at something they created with their own hands and know it would be used to help their community.

That creates a different kind of pride.

Career and technical education is at its best when students aren't simply practicing skills—they're using those skills for a purpose.

Thank you to everyone who donated materials and supported our students, and to the Cheboygan County Humane Society for giving these four student-built dog houses a home.