Framing Student Success is a project that partners Portland Community College, two Portland area high schools, and construction industry professionals to help high school students get a leg up in school and career aspirations.

This summer sixteen rising juniors mainly from Aloha and Benson high schools took an intensive three week college level class. It was facilitated by building construction teacher Spencer Hinkle and straw bale and cobb construction specialist Lydia Doleman, with help from "green building" expert Carrington Barrs, and "Living Roof" authority Anthony Roy.

Doleman and Hinkle at work with students

The class, Alternative Building Design and Construction, gave students a chance to design a weather station for the Environmental Studies program at PCC. The best part is they get to build it next summer, we'll tell you more about that after it's built. For now, we want to tell you about the exciting work that students completed this summer. Student teams studied different types of alternative building designs such as straw bale, cobb, rammed earth and adobe. They learned how solar orientation and roof over hangs could enhance the heating and cooling of a building. They studied eco roofs and how they help the environment. They learned about the design process, model making and how to present their ideas to the customer.

"Most of the students knew very little about how things get built, not to mention how they are designed," said Hinkle. "We had five days to teach students about construction materials and methods, blueprint reading and all of the “Green” concepts they were to incorporate into their designs. Then we had to teach them about design and model construction. The students were terrific, they really got into it."

Barrs shows students around the EcoTrust Building

Carrington Barrs gave students an awesome tour of the EcoTrust Building in NW Portland, Oregon. They saw how this beautiful building, about to be torn down for a new parking lot, was restored complete with a living roof. David, from Aloha asked, "which roof would you rather look at, the one in the foreground with the flowers and grass or the one in the background? We learned that eco roofs were not only appealing to the eye but good for the environment. Anthony Roy showed us how eco roofs clean, cool and retain rainwater before it hits the Willamette River. It's amazing the number of gallons of water that runs off of a residential roof each year. Eco roofs retain up to one-half of that water and the other half hits the storm sewer clean and cool."

Lydia Doleman took students on a tour of alternative buildings right here in Portland. They saw straw bale, cobb and a beautiful living roof at the People’s Food CO-OP in southeast Portland.

Mitchell from Aloha said, "because I want to be an architect, learning about how buildings are designed was really interesting to me. It was fun interviewing the customer to find out what the building would be used for. My team looked at what the customer told us, surveyed the surrounding buildings to see how our design would fit in, and sketched out our ideas on paper. Once we had a solid idea of what we were doing we began work on a scaled model. I never realized how much geometry was in involved in roof construction."

Student design team at work

Students used styrofoam as "straw bales" for models

After the building models were completed students prepared a PowerPoint presentation designed to persuade the customer to choose their design. Student teams made presentations to a panel of judges comprised of PCC Rock Creek campus president Bill Christopher and members of the Environmental Studies faculty. Benson student Matt Armstrong said, "putting together the PowerPoint presentation gave us the opportunity to review all the new concepts we had learned. The scary part was presenting to the campus president and the Environmental Studies teachers.”

Hinkle said, "the student presentations were well thought out. I think the judges really enjoyed them and probably learned something about green building to boot. The panel of judges found it impossible to choose one design because each team had come up with such good concepts and ideas. They finally decided to take elements from all five designs and roll them into one." Hinkle says the final plans will be ready to go this fall.

So what's next? Before students can build the weather station next summer a structural design must be completed that meets Oregon Structural Code. When students return to school this fall they will work with their math and science teachers and professionals from the construction industry to engineer the structural elements of the building.

When asked about why this work is so important Hinkle said "education is at its best when students can clearly see the purpose of their learning and have a stake in the outcome. We hope that the design and construction of this building will help students see the value of math and science and how they will use it when they are the construction professionals.

The program is receiving assistance from a number of dedicated construction professionals from leading companies like, Howard S. Wright, Renaissance Development, Turner, Walsh, Whitaker Ellis and Yorke and Curtis. They visited the summer class and talked about careers in construction and later will serve as mentors to students enrolled in the program.

Karl Lange from Renaissance Development said "I think this partnership between academia and industry is the only way to insure a viable, skilled workforce in the future. Surrounding kids with successful people who care about their futures and giving them meaningful projects gives them reason to excel. I wish I had been exposed to a program like this when I was in high school."

Check out the rest of our website to see what else we've done over the life of the grant.

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