Charles City students work on building a rock-climbing wall

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Project 18 was an opportunity for Charles City High School students to build a tiny house together.

Project 19 will literally have them climbing the walls.

The school-wide interdisciplinary project for the 2018-19 school year is a student-designed, student-built, rock-climbing wall. The project is inclusive of several departments at the school and utilizes school-to-community partnerships.

“These guys are going to have to learn how to set the roots — how to manage the wall and set all the safety standards so they can teach it to the other students later on,” said Charles City social studies teacher Robert Pittman. “It’s a whole interlocked thing.”

The tiny house — a student-designed, student-built, fully functional, 400-square-foot house — pulled together the skills and interests of students in art, agriculture construction, business and journalism classes, among others, as they designed, budgeted, built and promoted the school-wide project last year.

The rock-climbing wall intends to do the same thing. Students Kaleb Osier, Colton Baldus and Ben Naumann are heading up the construction end of the project. Osier, a senior, worked on the tiny house last year and said he enjoyed working on a big project like that.

“I’m really interested in the trades. I’m fairly good at it and I like framing, so it’s just kind of a way to do that in school,” he said.

“It’s a great experience,” added Baldus, also a senior. “Going into college, you’ll have to know how to do things like follow a blueprint, and this is another stepping stone.”

Osier said the students will set the climbing wall up in Jim Lundberg’s ag construction classroom, then move it to the gym. They’ll have to make sure it’s secure, so the wall will be inspected by an architect once it’s installed.

“He’ll look over everything and make sure it’s all safe,” Osier said.

The idea to build a rock climbing wall came from an outdoor education class Pittman teaches called “Expeditions.” For the last four years, Pittman has been taking students outside to Backbone State Park to go rock climbing. Two summers ago, the concept popped into his mind.

“I asked, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could do that here at the school?’” Pittman said.

Upon further investigation, Pittman realized he’d need about $16,000 in funding to do it. He went to Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield for a health grant.

“They ended up giving me a great amount of money,” he said.

The students held an obstacle course fundraiser, received several smaller grants from community organizations, a donation from the Excellence in Education fund, more donations from local banks as well as individuals, and raised enough money.

“I wanted to have it as part of my Expeditions class. It gives students another outlet, but it introduces students to a whole new career field — adventure tourism —  and it gives them a great opportunity to get into that,” Pittman said.

The goal is to have the rock-climbing wall up by Thanksgiving. The construction students have been working with the architecture firm Bergland & Cram out of Mason City.

“We hired them to help us with the design, to make sure we were structurally sound,” Pittman said. “Our student leaders have had to contact them and look at the design and make sure we’re getting everything right — it’s a total real-world experience for them.”

“The plans weren’t really complete, so we had to kind of figure out all the different measurements and dimensions to make it work for us,” Osier said.

“We had to figure out some of the angles and distances for the boards we had to cut. I think that was one of the most difficult parts,” added Baldus.

When it’s ultimately finished, the wall be a part of Pittman’s class as well as a part of the Charles City physical education program. Pittman has also talked with area Boys Scout and Girl Scout leaders, who can use the wall for an adventure badge, and he is hoping to work out a deal with the local YMCA as an option.

“Also, an elementary teacher can bring a class up here for a reward,” Pittman said. “Rock climbing gyms keep springing up. We used to have only one in Iowa, now we have close to 12. It just keeps building and building, plus it’s a great way to stay healthy.”

Osier said he is looking forward to seeing the wall put to use, and testing the wall out personally once it’s complete.

“I think it’s going to give a lot more opportunities to the community,” he said. “We live in a really flat part of Iowa, so there’s nowhere near where you can really enjoy rock climbing, so for me it’s going to be a place to go.”