Leveraging Construction Higher Education to Expose a Broader Audience of Public School Students to the Construction Industry in the United States

Abstract

The workforce shortage in construction is a serious issue. With a plethora of initiatives emerging in the past few years to attract more individuals to careers in construction, a question has arisen as to whether the initiatives reach an audience outside of those who would go to work in construction anyway. This project sought to develop an intervention that would expose a broader audience to construction topics, and related careers in construction, through a course in a construction higher education program. Students in the construction higher education program created lesson plans that would be employed in public school classrooms and fit in the required curriculum, thereby reaching all students and not just those already inclided toward a career in construction. The results suggest the course was successful in achieving its initial objectives, however long term impacts on the workforce shortage are not yet known.