Engineers must ask many important questions before designing and building a bridge: What type is best suited for this project? What materials should be used? What safety features will the bridge have? In this extraordinary, hands-on curriculum, students face similar questions, only on a smaller scale. As they learn about everything from correctly placing abutments, piers, piles, and trusses to evaluating the effectiveness of a bridge, students are putting their engineering knowledge into practice by designing, building, and testing a balsa wood bridge. In addition, great past and present engineering structures are covered with interesting facts and histories, including descriptions of the geodesic dome, Hoover Dam, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Home Maintenance refers to the primary, everyday repairs required in the home; many individuals choose to make these repairs themselves. Two areas are emphasized in the Home Maintenance curriculum: residential wiring and residential plumbing. This curriculum will briefly introduce students to the world of electricity and plumbing. Students gain experience completing simple repairs, such as assembling a lavatory faucet, rewiring a lamp cord, and learning how to maintain a water heater properly. They will learn to connect plumbing lines and install an outside tap.

Landscape design involves analyzing, planning, designing, creating, and constructing exterior spaces using plant materials and appropriate landscape elements. The Landscape Design curriculum will test students’ ingenuity as they plan a rough draft of a landscape design and then use software to complete the final project. Through this process, students gain valuable experience and practice completing scaled plans, applying fundamental design principles to landscape, and even basic math skills to create a bill of materials.

In Residential Construction, students build a model size of the corner of a house using the exclusive construction kit, complete with tools, materials, and procedures. First the foundation, where students learn about the components of a sill plate, foundation header, and support beam as they put them in place. Next, they build platform framing, which includes setting floor joists, measuring bridging, and adding sheathing. Then, students add exterior and interior walls and roofing. Each major step involves reading a framing schedule and building plan and measuring, cutting, and attaching various pieces.

In Residential Plumbing, students will understand the tools, terms, and techniques found in the plumbing industry. After a thorough orientation to safety standards and procedures and the Student Residential Plumbing Center, students put together and took apart a lavatory faucet. Next, they mount a kitchen sink faucet and install a kitchen sink waste water removal system, a shower head and tap, and outside faucets. As students complete each hands-on activity, they learn about the kinds of CPVC pipes and fittings, the four primary areas of home plumbing, the types of plumbing lines, and much more.

Students start this curriculum with a complete safety and hand tool orientation, and then they become familiar with the Student Wiring Panel, our specialized residential wiring kit. They begin by installing and wiring the service entrance, ground rod, and service panel before installing and wiring a dizzying array of items such as circuits, breakers, junction boxes, convenience outlets, ceiling lights, wall switches, additional junction boxes, a 220-volt outlet, doorbell, and a 3-way switch. Lastly, National Electrical Code (NEC) information, units of electricity, and accurate calculation of electric usage are some of the final components that help to produce this exciting DEPCO curriculum.