“Basically we have eight of our seniors from the Construction Management Program here, and this is their senior capstone project,” said Jason Krick, assistant professor in construction management.

Krick explained that those projects encompass everything the students have learned from their freshman year until their last semester, which is now.

“They bring in activities that are, I would say, STEM-related, that are giving the students, maybe a different view of some activities that might bring out something inside of them, that they might head into architecture or engineering or the construction field, and so these activities hopefully promote some kind of exposure to options like that,” Krick said.

In its third year, Krick has worked with Brooke Nenadal, elementary gifted and enrichment specialist in the Williamsport Area School District.

Aiden Cannon, construction management student, works with young students during a construction day event at Curtin Intermediate School in Williamsport. Students from the Penn College of Technology’s Construction Management program ran the program with the students as part of the “capstone project.” DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

Nenadal admitted that she loves doing engineering, construction building and design, and so it was just kind of a “natural fit” to have Krick’s “college seniors come in and work with the next generation, hopefully of college or career ready kids.”

She had first done the program when she was a third grade teacher and always envisioned it as “planting the seeds.”

“We have such a phenomenal CTE program at the high school. So I may not always see the outcomes quite yet, but I hope that I’m showing them some possibilities for down the road,” Nenadal said.

“They were all so pumped to come here today. They were all so excited. Honestly, there’s so much technology that they’re on, screen-wise, to like, build and cut and use these tools and just get their hands on those things is so much fun. There’s not a lot of time in school for, like, building and constructing. So to have a whole afternoon dedicated to that,” she said.

One of her students, Ali Zeshan, who is now a sixth grade student, participated in that program in third grade and he shared that he was so excited to be able to attend again that he literally could not sit still in anticipation of being there.

Emily Downard, 10 of Williamsport, builds a tower out of dry spaghetti and a marshmallow during a construction day event at Curtin Intermediate School in Williamsport. Students from the Penn College of Technology’s Construction Management program ran the program with the students as part of the “capstone project.” DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

Zeshan shared that he is very interested in hands-on type projects, not only during GEM time, but also at home. In fact in celebration of one of his holidays, Zeshan received a physics light set and an electrician set.

“I’ve been obsessing over it at home. I’ve been building a bunch of stuff with my dad,” he added.

He also said that he would like to be a biomedical engineer when he grows up.

“I feel like engineering is such a versatile and wonderful skill to have because you can use it for so many different projects that you’re curious about,” he said.

The project of the day for this year’s Construction Day was a cardboard house with a popsicle stick roof.

Brooke Nenadal, center, talks with her students about how to complete building a roof for a small cardboard house during a construction day event at Curtin Intermediate School in Williamsport. Students from the Penn College of Technology’s Construction Management program ran the program with the students as part of the “capstone project.” DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

So there’s four different rotations here, and they’re all making when it’s done, it will be a house. So we have some people cutting the roofs, some people cutting the walls, some people gluing the roof, and some people are gluing the house. So when it’s all done, they’ll have an assembled cardboard house. They get to use some different tools and materials. They’re taking some measurements over here at this station, and using the hot glue guns, which is really exciting. And the chomp saws are the big exciting (tools), she said.

Nenadal noted that the chomp saws, hot glue guns, the mats, mallets and safety equipment, were obtained through a grant from the district’s Education Foundation.

For fifth grader Emma Kriger, her career path will most likely lead her to a career in nursing, but she still sees the benefit of working on projects like the one from Construction Day.

“I messed up the roof, so sometimes you have to do trial and error,” she said.

Krick noted that the feedback from the elementary students who have participated in the past has been that they all seem to enjoy the activities.

“All the students that I’ve had-the seniors that have been in charge of running this activity-they’ve found great enjoyment, and they feel like they’re giving back to the community and introducing some things that, as far as career paths that might not be thought about,” he said.

Looking around at the younger students, there seemed to be a larger number of girls than boys in that group, which Nenadal said that although that is not always the case in the GEM program, which emphasizes STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields are often thought of as predominantly male.

“There really is a great opportunity for anyone and everyone to be in, whether it’s physical building, architecture, or anything,” she said

Brooke Brinker, one of the Penn College students, typifies women who are entering the construction field, just not maybe in what is often thought of as the traditional sense.

After graduating, she wants to do estimating for projects, such as submitting bids for jobs.

“I’ll be doing the estimating, so I’ll get the jobs before you can even build them,” she said.

Before she entered Penn College, Kriger, who is from the southeastern part of the state, said she had worked as an electrician, having been trained in her high school’s CT program.

She said that she always knew that she always wanted to work in the construction field.

“Construction’s always changing so you never know what you’re gonna get the next day, every day is different. It’s so much better than sitting behind a computer and doing the same thing,” she said.

“You can go anywhere. You can do anything. There’s so many opportunities in construction. It doesn’t matter if you want to push dirt or you want to be the one on the road, like you can do anything, and from there, you can go anywhere. So you can be the person on site doing everything, and then you can be the person who owns the company as well,” she said.