Students studying in Ivy Tech’s School of Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering & Applied Technology, are not only getting an opportunity for some hands-on learning in a home installation of an HVAC system, but also giving back to the community as they work with the agency Community One.
Community One is a Christian non-profit Community Development Corporation, addressing housing restoration and community development needs in the Evansville area. One of its engagement platforms is to take vacant and dilapidated homes in under-served neighborhoods and rehabilitate them for use. Their work is privately funded, volunteer-based and collaborative. Whole house rehabs remove blight and decay, reduce the density of substandard rental housing, provides affordable low-income housing, increases volunteerism into neighborhoods in need of help, hope and love, and among other things, brings new invested homeowners into neighborhoods.
Ivy Tech’s Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Chair Don Merle, said that Community One is investing in neighborhoods and people’s lives by bringing a house back to life in the community. He said he believes in passing along that sentiment to his students through service learning.
“We as students, and as human beings, get to make a difference by participating in projects like this and helping each other out.†Plus, he explained students are completing an entire project. “In the classroom we do pieces of projects, but with an assignment like this, they see it through from start to completion.†Merle said the class regularly does one service learning project a year.
Students begin by developing a plan after visiting the home and seeing what needs to be done. Then they rough out that plan and work with the agency to get the materials needed. Finally, they install the entire air duct system, furnace, and air conditioner – giving students the hands-on education they need in completing a project; and providing some future homeowner a brand new HVAC system in their home.
For additional information about Ivy Tech’s programs, go to www.ivytech.edu.
