Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

College 101 for High Schoolers

Photos and story by James Hill

by James HillPortland Community College isn’t just for college students. It’s now home to high school students, too. Thanks to new grants, several programs are using the new funds to help give under-represented high school students an opportunity to experience college and be exposed to math and science.High schoolers design straw bale buildingAt the Rock Creek Campus, a National Science Foundation grant has allowed the PCC Building Construction Technology (BCT) program to host 16 local high school juniors. The "Framing Student Success" effort was made possible by a $697,750 grant over three years to attack the problem of high school students under-preparation in math, science and technology. The students used their skills to plan, design and construct a miniature 200-square-foot, eco-friendly straw bale house."My dad works as a general contractor and so I wanted to learn about the business," said David Petrinn of Grant High School. "I love design and putting things together. This was a lot of fun for me to actually help design a real building."The project also offers professional development for 50 high school teachers and 24 community college faculty about the requirements and rewards of a career in building construction technology. The instructors will use much of what they saw and learned in the program in their own classrooms."The students were very enthusiastic about it," said Terry Bennett, math instructor at Aloha High School and a graduate of MIT. "I intend to use examples of this program and portions of it in each of my classes; it really brings so much reality to what students are studying. I’m hoping to form a club with those students and help encourage more students to join for the next year."The students, many from Aloha, Benson and Grant high schools, were thrilled and engaged. They understood how the eco-building, to be built at Rock Creek Campus next summer, could save energy and be non-disruptive to the environment."The eco-roofs allow water to fall down the sides and cleans the water as it filters down back to the ground," explains David Chea, from Aloha High School. "Habitat plays a role in these buildings. It must be environment friendly and must coexist with nature.""The hardest part was getting the walls to fit," said Matt Armstrong, from Benson Technical High School. "I’ve been wanting to do something like this since I was 5. The eco roof is good for the environment and keeps the building cooler in the summer. The rain gets filtered through the roof and makes the runoff 15 degrees cooler, which helps the fish."The students not only designed eco-friendly buildings but also were also able to take tours of the EcoTrust Building in downtown Portland to learn about straw-bale alternatives, look at home energy needs from the city’s Office of Sustainable Development, learned about alternative construction techniques like adobes, how to read blueprints and utilized solar orientation to design their projects.Bennett said, "Being able to be a part of competing in design of a building that will actually get constructed at the PCC campus, that level of reality will be very important for them."Pathway to college for first-generation students High school students aren’t just getting experience at Rock Creek, but at Sylvania as well. This effort is part of PCC creating avenues to college for high school students. The Upward Bound program welcomed its first group of 50 high school students from the Beaverton and Tigard-Tualatin school districts to the Sylvania Campus for an intensive six-week summer session of classes, research projects and career-exploration activities.Lucia Martinez, a 16-year-old Sunset High student, said the PCC Upward Bound experience has helped her focus on what she wants to do with her life."I’m taking the summer classes because they are helpful to get a heads-up and help me do better next year," said Martinez, who indicates some day she’d like to become a teacher. "My favorite part is every Friday we go on field trips. Last week, we went to an electric company and learned how they store electricity and how it is transferred."Upward Bound, a federally funded program through the U.S. Department of Education, helps increase the number of low-income, first-generation college bound Latino youth who plan to complete high school and enter college. PCC earned a four-year $880,000 federal grant for this endeavor.Upward Bound Director Jean Garcia Chitwood, said, "I’m especially pleased about our students’ opportunity to have a real college experience at PCC. Being on campus will validate their aspirations to go to college more than any other service we can provide."