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Construction management
students learn hands-on
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Students from Engineering class 441/141, a basic construction
course, finished erecting a greenhouse in the Idaho Botanical
Gardens on Saturday as part of the course’s service-learning
project.
Preston Ellingford was one of 30 upper-division construction
management students supervising the work. The Botanical
Garden’s greenhouse looks similar to the greenhouses on
campus, Ellingford said, using a steel frame and thick plastic
skin.
On Tuesday, the lower-division construction management students set
the posts in concrete.
“That’s how we teach our class. We take the 141
students and do different labs that are hands-on from different
divisions of construction,” Ellingford said.
The service-learning component is designed to give students
hands-on experience while giving back to the community. Ellingsford
said the service-learning project depends upon the opportunities
available to the class.
“As a class (we) debate what we want to do,” Ellingford
said. “It was just a matter of when everyone could do
it.”
The students had some problems getting lunch donated, but the
Botanical Gardens provided food and drink. Some service projects
are done with donated materials, but the Botanical Gardens paid for
greenhouse materials.
Last year the class painted migrant workers’ housing in
Marsing, Idaho.
“One of the guys in our group … got the paint
donated,” Ellingsford said. “Every year we have to have
it [materials] donated or someone buy it.”
The class teaches as much as it can about every aspect of
construction — laying foundation to supervising workers.
“We teach every part of the actual aspect of construction
… we try to teach them as much as we can in a service
learning [project]. It just depends on what the nature of the
project is,” Ellingford said. “It’s more of a
teaching tool to apply what you learning in your classes and
… to give back to the community,”
Last year was the first time the class incorporated a
service-learning project.
The idea stemmed from instructor John Martin. He brought the
service-learning project idea with him from his previous faculty
position at Texas A&M.
Construction management is the only program in the Engineering
College that has a service-learning component.
Monica Price
News Reporter
