Baxter Springs students learning to build homes - KOAM TV 7

Baxter Springs students learning to build homes

Baxter Springs High School students in the Building Trades program take things outside the classroom for a hands-on approach.

Thirty students have just finished their latest project - a house with insulated concrete form.  Now they are working on a stick frame home.

The students say the hands-on experience is more beneficial to them when it comes to putting the house from the ground up because they learn lessons they typically wouldn't in the classroom.

The instructor of the course, Jeff McCandless, says it's hard work and experience that will help ensure students a better future.

"When these kids get out of here some of them will have experience and they can say they have built three houses by the time they graduate high school, and that's from pouring the footing to wiring and building cabinets, doing sheet rock work, laying tile - anything that goes into a house, if they have been in it for two-three years they have had good experience," says McCandless.