WAUKEE, Iowa — Over at Waukee High School, instructor Mark Howsare is welding together new plans to help get more kids involved in trades.
"There's a skills gap that's kind of going on, we have a low amount of kids that want to go into vocational and community colleges," he told Local 5.
With the help of technology, Mr. Howsare hopes to spark some interest into welding while getting rid of the risk of danger.
"We have a new technology now, which is an augmented reality welder that will allow the kids to virtually weld without sparks without heat," Howsare said.
Beau Andrews is a junior at Waukee High School. Welding started off as just another course but has quickly become a strong interest for him.
"I saw this class, I was like, 'You know what, I'll take it, whatever, it's just another class' and took it and I absolutely loved it. So, I enrolled for the next one and then the next one, " Andrews said.
Now Andrews has become a real pro at augmented reality welding. After he finishes a project, he gets feedback in real-time on how he did.
"Once the kids get their bearings on the augmented reality, we'll move to doing real welding, and we'll be doing overheads, we'll be doing verticals, horizontals, tees, pipe, a lot of things that we couldn't necessarily do before," Howsare said.
All these levels of learning are leading these students to be one step ahead after graduation.
"If you can kind of master the skills here at Waukee, you can use those to move to the community college and step right into their welding programs and have a leg up on other kids who may not have had that," Howsare said.
Helping the workforce shortage is something Andrews hopes his generation will lead the charge in.
"We do need more of these trade workers and we need more electricians. We need more welders, we need more this and that, but I think it is something that my generation can do and we can step into these spots and fill them."
The school district says this class will help students be more prepared for vocational or community college experience. But for now, the work is just beginning.