Battle Ground — The girls donned carpentry tools and a wire-feed welder while the boys learned about everything from culinary arts to criminal justice during a couple of recent Maple Grove School field trips that were aimed at getting all sixth-graders out of the classroom and into the workforce.
On May 14, Maple Grove sixth-grade girls visited the Women In Trades career fair at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, hosted by Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. They worked side by side with women professionals on projects such as fixing a broken water main and shimmying up a 15-foot steel girder and heard some inspirational talks about “facing fear, having confidence in yourself, and never giving up,” said teacher Doug Shannon. The sixth-grade boys toured the Clark County Skills Center in Vancouver and learned about many of its programs — starting with a breakfast prepared by the culinary arts program and then sampling criminal justice, restaurant management and automotive, construction, diesel, electro-digital and pre-engineering/design technologies.
