'construction Challenge' Attracts Junior-high, High-school Teens To Industry's Many Jobs

摘要

Your assignment: Make a tool to separate a tray of golf balls and wood blocks into two piles without touching them. Transfer the piles across an obstacle course of orange cones, and drop them into designated boxes. Hurry up! Don't step outside the boundary lines, or you'll lose points. Thousands of junior-high and high school students took on tasks like this one at 15 regional "Construction Challenge" competitive rallies held on Saturday, Feb. 7, across the U.S. and Canada. Their goal was to find creative solutions to real-life scenarios typical of construction sites or drawing tables. That, and the scholarship money at the end of the road. Now in its second year, Construction Challenge is a career-education initiative designed to encourage and develop the next generation of workers across construction's many facets. The program was founded by the Workforce Development Committee of Milwaukee-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers in partnership with nonprofit group Destination ImagiNation, Glassboro, N.J., which produces creative problem-solving and critical-thinking experiences that are custom-tailored to a variety of industries for children and adults.