By: , Alpena News
ALPENA - Members of the Alpena High School career and technical education welding course have been working on two unique benches for Ella White Elementary School's nature area. The project came about when Jacob Dewitt of the Northeast Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative got together with both the welding class and Ella White staff to have the high school students work on a project for someone else. After a rough draft was made of what the benches were to look like, students worked at making a design and putting the plan into action.
"The students built both benches themselves with guidance," welding Instructor Ron Cadarette said. "We had one of our seniors, Eric Bauer, do the CAD work with the plasma cam, and some students from our welding I course working on the benches."
The students were to treat making the benches with quality craftsmanship in mind, and took the project on with enthusiasm.
"They started in the middle of the first trimester, and it took about a trimester and a half to finish them," Cadarette said. "Most of the benches - about 90 percent - were made of scrap metal that had been donated by local industries to the program."
Students from Ella White's third grade class and Head Start students made a banner to thank the welding students for their hard work, and presented it to them during an assembly Thursday afternoon. The benches are mostly metal with wood seats, and have "AHS Welding" etched into the back, and "Ella White" cut into the support beams between the legs on each end of the bench.
Nicole Grulke can be reached via email at ngrulke@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5687. Follow Nicole on Twitter @ng_alpenanews.
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