Thunder Bay, Ont., students get hands-on experience at Trades and Tech Summer Camp

Welding, carpentry, cooking — some Thunder Bay, Ont., students are getting first-hand experience with the skilled trades this week.

The Trades and Tech Summer Camp, hosted by Skills Ontario, is running at Confederation College. Students entering grades seven through nine are getting a taste of the various trades, and even making their own items, such as plant hangers and bird houses, to take home.

"Rather than just [sticking] to your basic university courses like they pushed on my generation, kids are getting into the trades more these days," said Alex Graham, a program facilitator with Skills Ontario. "Shop class is the exciting thing coming up."

"This week's just an opportunity to showcase a little bit of what's to come in the next few years for those who are interested, and hopefully they have some fun," he said. "At the very least, they find out they didn't like anything this week. They know maybe shop class won't be for them in high school. Either way, they get something valuable out of it."

On Wednesday, the students were participating in a welding session.

"The first day, we had a tour of the school and we did a scavenger hunt with trees," said Sophie Waddington, a student at Claude E. Garton Public School. "We made dams out of popsicle sticks and clay and stuff, and we also used little robots. That was fun."

"And [Tuesday], we learned about dirt and stuff and we made concrete hands."

Waddington said she was enjoying the camp, and was looking forward to the cooking session later in the week.

Kael Liedke, a student at Gorham and Ware Community Public School, was also enjoying his time at the camp.

"I like learning about making stuff and how people fix things," he said, adding he's interested in studying welding or civil engineering.

Gerald Silvaggio, a professor with the college's welding program, said introducing students to the skilled trades at camps can help attract more people to the field.

"I used to go to the high schools quite a bit and do dual credit programs there, and quite often I'd see them come from there into this program here, which is pretty fun to see," he said.

Silvaggio was working with the students at the welding session on Wednesday. A large part of Wednesday's focus, he said, was safety.

"Safety is a very big deal with anything in this trade," he said. "Then just little things, I guess, with how to do welds."

"It's such a short little time you're with them," Silvaggio said. "Hopefully, it's [making] some kind of an impression on them."

Skills Ontario said the Confederation College Trades and Tech Summer Camp is one of more than 30 camps it's running across the province this summer.