A new high-school co-op program in Kincardine is introducing students to the many different jobs in the nuclear supply chain in Grey Bruce.
About 25 students are taking part in an energy Specialist High Skills Major, (SHSM) which is a concentration of courses in a specific field, co-op placements and certification courses like first aid, CPR, at-heights training and others.
This new co-op is organized by the Nuclear Innovation Institute, the Bluewater District School Board, Kincardine District Senior School, Bruce Power, nuclear suppliers and post-secondary institutions.
KDSS teacher Sarah Chalmers-Anderson says this program is different from other co-ops. Instead of going to one employer for 17 weeks, they’re learning from numerous employers.
Nuclear Innovation Institute Explore Director Phillip Craig coordinated “let’s run a co-op for all of these stuidents in whuich they don’t do one thing for four months, but what they do is they have a differnt nuclear company and a different nucelar job come to them every week.” Craig says it allows them to try more things before making a decision about their post-secondary paths.
“We have been so fortunate to have amazing industry partners. Everybody in the indusrty is so excited to come and share what they do,” says Craig.
Last week, the students visited Stevcon Packaging in Owen Sound. Stevcon is a local packaging and logistics company that creates shipping containers, including containers for medical isotopes that are harvested at Bruce Power.
There are many specialist high skills major programs students can take, that focus on agriculture, law and justice, arts, aviation/aerospace, construction, hospitality, sports and many other industries.
KDSS Teacher Sarah Chalmers-Anderson says, “The whole program from start to finish is to give the kids an idea of what the energy industry looks like. We get students all the time who come into co-ops and they say ‘I want to work at Bruce Power.’ I’m like, do you know how many jobs that is,?” says Chalmers-Anderson, adding “Do you know the breadth and the depth of different jobs that encompass Bruce Power? So we’re trying to take them to things that are connected to the energy industry that they might not think of.”
She says the students have been working out of the Local 2222 Carpenter’s union office and recently had a visit from BWXT representatives and learned about isotopes. “To then go and see where they’re packaged and shipped from and spread all over,” explains Chalmers-Anderson, “Stevcon is a piece of that, and to show that our little neck of the woods creates these isotopes and then they work to send them out where they’re needed.”
“The students in this program have seen huge amounts of very different things,” says Chalmer-Anderson, noting for example, representatives from Ford brought in electric vehicles for the students to learn about, they’ve toured different parts of Bruce Power, for example, visiting the security and emergency response team. “The kids were putting out fires, and dragging practice dummies,” says Chalmers-Anderson.
They also had BWXT presenters teach them more about isotopes. The NII says they have also met with NPX, ATS Industrial Automation, Sargent & Lundy, AtkinsRéalis, TC Energy, Nuclear Waste Management Organization, Ontario Power Generation, Georgian College and Hydro One.
This week they are at the NII’s Advance Technology Campus in Kincardine learning about welding and its role in the industry with Fanshawe College.
Chalmers-Anderson points out students also learned about welding plastic with Abraflex in Paisley.
“As part of the SHSM program, the kids do first aid, CPR and WHMIS.” She says they’re also going to to ‘at heights’ training to learn the safety protocols to work at certain heights.
Chalmers-Anderson says they’ve got more students signed up for next year’s program and they hope to see if they can also make it available to other schools in the coming years.
