WMU prepares for future careers

WINFIELD — Winfield-Mt. Union Industrial Technology classes continue to grow and expand to meet the need of preparing students for the unknown jobs of the future thanks in part to grants.

Last week the Southeast Iowa Builders announced a total distribution of $25,000 of grants to eight Southeast Iowa schools, including WMU. Through these grants WMU received $2,075.

According to Industrial Technology Instructor Trevor Kongable, these funds went toward new equipment which he will use to continue expanding WMU’s industrial technology studies for students.

“We put that towards a brand-new Miller Stick Welder, a DeWalt Planner, and a DJI Mini Drone,” Kongable said.

While the uses for the stick welder and planner are straightforward, Kongable says the drone will benefit the program in multiple ways.

One of the most obvious ways Kongable anticipates using the drone is to educate students on drone usage and functionality. The DJI Mini Drone will expand on some education Kongable’s classes already learned thanks to another grant last spring.

According to Kongable, WMU received a grant from the Governor’s Stem Advisory Council for Future Ready Iowa. They used this grant for a Discover Drones curriculum.

This curriculum gave students the opportunity to build their own drones with what Kongable called a “complicated Lego kit.”

“They provide all the parts and pieces and you bolt them together and then you configure the drone with the controller,” Kongable said. “Then you can fly it and race it.”

Kongable explained that the Discover Drones curriculum also touches on how to be responsible drone operators.

“It also teaches about all the legalities about flying, how to get a license, what you can do with a license, what you can do without a license,” Kongable said.

According to Kongable, the drones from the Discover Drones curriculum are made more for speed and are more difficult to fly.

“The DJI drone is better for instruction on like actual drone things and for seeing stuff,” Kongable said.

Because the DJI drone is significantly more stable to fly and offers a memory card slot, Kongable says the uses for the drone expand.

“So, we can fly it and then we can look at that footage and we can look at that footage … and kind of analyze that video from the flying,” Kongable explained.

This gives Kongable and students the opportunity to critically examine their flying skills and workshop better options for future flights as they hone their skills.

“The other reason was for the carpentry class,” Kongable said. “With the drone, I can get up in the air and I can show roofs and I can show different parts of buildings without having to get a ladder and without having to get students into higher areas.”

The addition of both types of drones to the WMU industrial technology offer students the opportunity to begin to prepare to careers of the future by learning new skills and adding to traditional trade skills such as carpentry or even agriculture.

“We have a former student here at Winfield that has a business where he does spraying and fertilizing fields with a drone,” Kongable said.

Kongable says he could see drones used in livestock agriculture as well.

“As farmers get older, it's harder to get out there and check all the animals but with a drone they could check all their animals without having to get out and get out of the truck or do anything,” he said.

In addition to adding to already established careers, Kongable is excited to see where WMU’s industrial technology curriculum can prepare students for unknown future careers.

“I have an eighth-grade class where we teach robotics,” Kongable said. “And I was expressing to them last week that artificial intelligence is going to take a lot of the jobs that are currently out there. And so they need they need skills, like hands on skills, to be able to either work on machinery or work on robotics, or fix the problems that are that come along associated with all that artificial intelligence.”

While Kongable is excited about these new tools and additional information provided through drone curriculum, he says his focus as the WMU industrial technology program grows is to teach overall concepts that will translate even into the unknown.

“One thing we’re trying to look at here at Winfield is how do we prepare students, not only for the jobs that are available now, but the jobs that will be created in the future, that we really can’t tell exactly what they’ll be,” Kongable said. “But looking at history, we know there always is going to be a need for someone to be able to work with tools, look at a problem critically, think about, and solve that problem.”

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com