RHS students build Thoreau cabin replica
Students at Riverside High School are learning about more than just wood working in Greg Springett’s vocational trades program.
This year the students build a timber frame replica of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin.
Thoreau, an American philosopher, lived and wrote in the small cabin in the wilderness from 1840 to 1850.
Thoreau’s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism, according to Springett.
After the lesson is complete the buildings are sold and the money goes back to the school supplement program to pay for supplies and materials for future projects.
“It (the class) runs like a small business,” Springett said. “The kids are involved in every aspect of the project including the sale of it after it is complete.”
The skills they are learning go far beyond what a traditional wood shop class offers, he said.
The class of 36 students (about 12 students per period) built their own wood shop, which includes garage doors the students hung themselves.
Springett, together with his students, built a neighborhood garden with raised garden boxes and aesthetically pleasing fencing, sheds, a gazebo and a green house.
“The kids designed and built the trusses for all the storage sheds and Thoreau’s cabin,” Springett said .
Within the greenhouse, the students have also grown starter plants for the GROW organization giving them a hand up on the growing season. The students will help plant the starters in the two community gardens in town.
The students also crafted picnic benches for the cafeteria, cabinets for the science lab and a cedar strip canoe.
“I focus on group projects rather than traditional individual projects,” Springett said. “The kids work together and learn not only carpentry skills, but cooperation skills, mathematics and history.”