Alex Foundation and SkillSet
Building Skills Together
During the summer of 2022, SkillSet partnered with the Alex Foundation, and we traveled to McGehee and Conway Arkansas to teach young people interested in architecture and design.
SkillSet instructors worked with students for only two days of their summer camp experience, and taught them to safely use a number of power and hand tools to design and build their own custom benches from pine.
This partnership was made possible with the help of the American Association of University Women, who generously granted us the funds to make our programming mobile. This partnership with the Alex Foundation was our first very long distance excursion with our mobile programming.
Learning Outcomes of Build-A-Bench curriculum:
- Reading design schematics
- Measuring and marking (with math!)
- Safe use of hand and power tools, including: hammers, drills, jigsaws, palm sanders, miter saw
- Construction site teamwork and safety practices
- Basics of furniture design
- Wood grains and assembly techniques
