Calgary Construction Association’s Post

Transcript

To the news and stories impacting your life back down to connect with Sarah Crosby on QR Calgary. You know that there are the authors that students learn in school. You've got the reading, you've got the writing, you've got the arithmetic. And now, now maybe there's also the R value. Digital R value is a measurement of insulation. I just learned that, but construction. Government into our schools in a very interesting way. Welcome back to the show, Bill Black, president and CEO of the Calgary Construction Association. Welcome back to connect Bill. Thank you so much, Sarah. Happy to be here. Are launching a program today that literally seems like you've been reading the minds of our listeners it is called honor the work in the Calgary Catholic school district for elementary students. This is something we've been hearing about so often is putting an importance of focus a love on the construction world with our students younger and in schools the unique thing about this program is never before have we found a way or. Even frankly thought that we should be in elementary, we've tended to focus on high school. And it's not that high school isn't important, but in today's world, more than ever, high school kids, they may not have decided what they are going to do after high school, but more than likely they probably decided what they're not going to do. And construction would be on that list, sadly. Work in the elementary schools in the with the Calgary Catholic School District. What does that look like? So I'm I'm 7 year old Jonathan. How does this become part of my classroom? Well, the reality is you're, you're going to be introduced to age appropriate reading material, stories that you can connect with about kids who have built things. So you've got reading material you can connect with that are lessons. And then there are activities where you will build things. You will literally you will build a brick wall out of sugar cubes and icing. I just watched a bunch of kids doing it today and when they weren't looking, the icing off their fingers. They were building walls with door openings in them and they were comparing each others work. And there's a welding helmet where they get to look through a welding helmet and understand light and the way the science of light. So it blends science with construction and history of homes and construction. And we saw a grade four class today they were building a train that. Runs floats on a magnet and there are probably were eight or nine different groups of kids. They were all building a different train. They were all interpreting the exercise differently. One of the teams had even broken into different roles. They had a young lady who was literally being the project manager and she was assigning roles and telling them what to do. And it it, it was unbelievable to watch their natural inclination lead them to engage as a team. And as individuals and realize that without Honor the work, that would possibly are likely never to found. Do you know specific numbers about how many schools and how many students get to be part of Honor the work? So between the small pilot at the of about 50 classrooms at CBE and CCS who are rolling out across all their elementary classes about 850 boxes between them all, about 31,000 kids in grades one to six will be exposed to the experience of construction and the context of construction in the first year alone. Well, let's do the math. I hope maybe like 10 years from now you and I can talk and you can say, hey, do you remember when we launched Honor the Work and I told you about the sugar cubes, that girl who was the project manager and with the trains and everyone who's just involved that day, I've got some of them working right now building the blankety blank like here in Calgary. That would be a fantastic story. Dream and there's absolutely no reason it won't become the reality the the the difference of this program as well is industry has realized we need to make a long term investment we can't just go to high school kid and when they graduate hire them at the end of this year and then have that quick turnaround that is needed but we also need to start thinking 10/15/20 years ahead and these stories will happen and I. Cannot wait to hear them and and once again we'll be pinching ourselves because. Today we saw kids working on. Exercises that we put together in boxes back in August and I first heard about two years ago. That was a pinch yourself moment. There was a motional members of our team were were all tearing up a little bit because that's how important this is. The more importantly we're seeing the delight. The noise level in the classroom was was just incredible. These kids all all having fun doing it. I can't wait exactly to hear that meet some young woman. The young man a few years from now who said, yeah, you know what? I did this thing in elementary school and discovered I was really good at it and I loved it and I decided to follow it. And, and I own a company or I'm now working on, on a large project downtown or I'm, I'm now, I'm now working on the third school that I've worked on in the last 18 months. These are the stories that we absolutely are thinking about today, even at this. Early stage reading, writing, arithmetic. What would be your R construction? Where to throw in there? Bill Black? I used our value because I looked it up and I thought it seemed fitting. But do you have a better R word to complete the circle? You know, I think umm renew. Renew. We're renewing communities where we're renewing our city all the time. Every time we, we, I mean construction, we renew, we renovate there. There are a number of different stages to what we do and every time we touch a building. The building itself is a brand new entity, or the building we touched has renewed elements or has been renovated or upgraded. We leave a permanent mark on the communities. We leave a permanent mark on the skyline. Our our industry literally leaves a physical trail behind us of everything we've worked on, and it lasts for generations. OK, look, I know you're the president of the Calgary Construction Association, but you're the connect construction philosopher. You, you are, you are such a thinker and thoughtful person when it comes to this stuff. I'm, yeah, I'm calling you my construction philosopher from here on out. Been called many things in my career and most of them have been a lot worse than that. So I don't think I would complain. That's a compliment. Bill Black, that is a compliment. That is president and CEO and my construction philosopher from the Calgary Construction Association on the new program, honor the work showing and teaching and illustrating to elementary students the value of knowing and understanding what goes into construction. Thank you for joining. Connect again this afternoon, Bill. Thank you so much, Sarah. Can.