This year marked the 11-year anniversary of New Hampshire’s Construction Career Days, which took place on September 26th & 27th. New Hampshire Construction Career Days (NHCCD) is a two-day event that exposes New Hampshire high school students to possible career paths in both the construction and transportation industries through hands-on exhibits and educational resources. Labor unions, construction companies, school districts, state agencies, trade and professional organizations collaborate to provide the students with an introduction to various aspects of construction. Thursday morning hundreds of students were bused into the Hillsborough County 4-H Fairgrounds in New Boston, NH where there were countless displays and activities set up for them to explore. Everything from operating large heavy equipment, to welding, to making a structure out of spaghetti with our friends from the NH Department of Transportation.
This year promoting the American Society of Civil Engineers of NH (ASCE-NH) were four board members Mike Bogue-President, Anabelle Audet-VP, Nick Golon-Treasurer, and Logan Johnson,-Past President. They were volunteers at the event and hosted a table with a water filtration experiment to get students excited about Civil Engineering. A quick hands-on experiment on how to filter water with materials you can gather from your house and yard sparked the students interest and drew a crowd, they all wanted to learn more. Nick Golon, PE, a Senior Project Manager in TFMoran’s Civil Engineering department, showed a group of students the results of their filtration experiment. The experiment consisted of a plastic cup with a hole in the bottom, a piece of paper towel, gravel, sand, and some heavily soiled water. Students constructed their mini filtration device with first the paper towel to hold in the filter media, followed by a layer of sand, and gravel on top. They then poured in the dirty water and competed with other students on who’s water came out cleaner.
Over 1,500 students came walking through the fairgrounds over the two-day event. The ASCE-NH volunteers explained to the students that creating clean water is just one of the many, many responsibilities that Civil Engineers have. We serve the community by designing safe travel ways, sturdy structures, means to drain the storm water from our roads and communities, and maintaining all these essential pieces to support society! The most important… is that everything a civil engineer designs, needs to be constructed. Construction is the most vital part of the puzzle and the industry is always in need of bright young talent to construct our projects.
With the increasing age of our labor force in New Hampshire, this event is extremely important to get students excited about a career path in construction. Not every young adult is interested in attending a 4-year college after high school, and this event promotes an array of options.
A huge thank you to all who participated in the planning this event, the schools that bused students from miles away from all over New Hampshire, and all the exhibitors and sponsors. ASCE-NH was just one small table out of a whole fairground filled of volunteers promoting the future workforce of tomorrow to lead a career in construction!
