One of our main assets in our student community is our complete metal and wood shop. This shop is fully student-run, meaning that it is our privilege and responsibility to train our peers how to be safe, competent, and considerate while using tools in the shop.

Every student in IGEN must complete a mandatory shop training, and starting in 2021 we developed a birdhouse project which would incorporate many of the most commonly used tools in the shop:

• Chop Saw
• Jig Saw
• Impact Driver
• Cordless and Drill press
• Sheet Metal Brake and Shear
• Belt and Rotary Sander

Every student in IGEN built a birdhouse, start to finish, under our instruction. Our goal, in addition to raising competency and safety within the shop, was to be stewards to build our peers’ confidence in their own abilities. Many of the second year students entering our community had never used a drill before, and so patience, low stakes, and a tolerant approach was employed throughout.

Given this, we also developed a pre-birdhouse safety walkthrough and test to ensure general shop safety principles were well-understood.

Here are some photos of the birdhouses, students at work, and the written test we developed for the safety walkthoughs:

In following years, we altered the shop safety trainings to include a few more tools (scroll saw, band saw, bench grinder), but operated them in a purely sequential fashion. That is, one student at a time on one tool at a time. This let us supervisors have a much easier time giving pointers and helping students use each tool properly with less chaos around us.