FIELD TWP- Thanks to a collaboration between North Woods Industrial Arts teacher Bruce Black and Ryan’s Rustic Railings of Orr, the school has two new beautiful natural wood benches made by Black’s students this past semester.
With an extremely limited materials budget, Black is always on the lookout for grant opportunities to enhance his students’ education, and he found one last fall through the Northeast Service Cooperative, an eight-county, 32-district organization devoted to promoting career-technical education. The $5,000 grant required that the school have an industry partner for its proposal, so Black reached out to Ryan Holman at Ryan’s Rustic Railings, who was more than happy to collaborate.
Black was notified in January that he was to receive the award, which was used to fund purchase of materials and supplies, field trips to Ryan’s Rustic Railings in February and March, and tools for the installation of the benches at the school.
On their field trips, students learned about Ryan’s Rustic Railings and shop operations, observed skilled woodcrafters in action, and received guidance and supervision in using industry-standard equipment to craft their benches, equipment not available to them in a school shop setting.
The experience was designed to give students hands-on experience in one of Minnesota’s high-demand industries, that of carpentry and wood trades. Carpenters in northeastern Minnesota earn an average of $29.13 an hour, with a project employment growth of 3.2 percent by 2032, according to the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development. Career-technical careers are gaining in popularity for their high wages and training programs that provide apprenticeships and education tracks that allow students to join the workforce more quickly than traditional four-year college degree programs. Careers like carpentry often pay better than entry-level white collar jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree.
“The kids loved it and did a great job of working and seeing a local value-added forest/timber industry at work,” Black said.