After-school go-kart club aims to create next generation of trades workers in northeast B.C.

While most students head home after school in Fort St. John, B.C., brothers Arjen and Henry Pos lean over a workbench sealing welds on a half-finished go-kart frame.

“We are some of the few kids in our neighbourhood who don’t own a dirt bike or a quad,” says Arjen.

"We haven't really had the farm kid experience that a lot of our classmates have had, from having either parents in the oil patch or living on a farm."

Around them, the sounds of metalwork — clinks and clanks — ring around the shop at Dr. Kearney Middle School.

Teacher William McColm walks the room playing foreman, giving each of the 14 students a tailored task for the hour and checking in on their work.

McColm started the after-school club last year to give students a hands-on introduction to fabrication, welding and digital design before they reach his Grade 9 class.

He says the club has helped students find their identity as much as it has engaged them with their academic classes, applying math and science in a way relevant to their interests.

"They're trying to understand where they fit in the world," says McColm.

“This program gives them an opportunity to realize that they can work with their hands, that they can make things, that they can contribute to a team, that they can be successful in building something they find meaningful."

B.C’s latest labour market outlook predicts more than 168,000 job openings in trades and related fields by 2035, mostly as workers retire.

This year, Dr. Kearney students are learning to build three go-karts, starting with a simple-gas powered kart.

Next they'll build a full-suspension model, and then a self-driving EV.

“We're going to take everything that I do in robotics, and we're going to add sensors to one of the frames and we'll add computers,” says McColm.

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, and the economy continues to progress, McColm sees a future where trades workers will need to understand fabrication as much as they do automation.