Cedar Falls CAPS students learning construction skills as they renovate house | Education News

“We had to do a lot of improvements bringing it up to code,” said senior Donnie Melton.

On the first floor, the house has a living room, dining room, kitchen, mud room, and half bathroom with washer/dryer hookups. On the second floor, it has three bedrooms and a bathroom.

Grund, who also works as an industrial technology teacher at Peet Junior High School, said students typically spend their class periods on Mondays and Tuesdays at Plumb Tech, a mechanical contractor in Waterloo. CAPS programs partner with businesses to have classroom space outside of the school.

He said students worked on carpentry skills in a lab setting at Plumb Tech and then put what they learned into practice at the house. During the last weeks of school, they will start the drywall but aren’t expected to finish it before spending time at other Habitat for Humanity work sites to learn more about what the organization does.

Habitat volunteers will finish up renovation work at the house. Unlike other remodeling projects and the new houses they build, this won’t be a house for a client. Instead, it will be sold and is expected to be on the market by June.

Melton noted that he had some building experiences at home working with family members, but the class has taught him a lot.

“For me personally, there was a lot to learn,” he said. CAPS Industries helped him with “applying my knowledge that I had.”

Jasiah Clark, who is also a senior, learned “how to lay out a wall” with studs placed every 16 inches and then nail it all together. He was also taught how to measure and cut the insulation they installed between the studs on the exterior walls. He enjoyed learning the construction skills.

“It was new. I’d never done it before,” he said.

“I think it was overwhelming at first,” senior Falah Alshekhahmed said of being on a construction job. But he soon got used to the workplace demands. “I picked up things pretty easily.”

Those kinds of experiences are important to what Grund is trying to accomplish in CAPS Industries. The skills they’re learning have already gotten some students to look at the construction trades, where a number are planning to start jobs or do internships this summer.

“The goal is exposure into the trades to maybe offer career paths,” he said.