Dearborn High is slowly growing a program that makes math practical for students and helps prepare them for carpentry work on their own or as part of a trade career.
This is the second year the school has offered a Geometry in Construction class where students put math lessons to work.
This year’s class projects included making obstacles for the Dearborn Police Department’s drone team. Students created wooden platforms to hold buckets at different angles. The bottom of each bucket has targets for the drone camera to focus on and magnets to attach the buckets to the platforms.
“It trains us in dexterity and in controlling the drone,” said Cpl. Bill Anhut, who is a school resource officer and a member of the police department’s drone team.
Geometry in Construction teacher James Piche said the building project started with a call asking if officers could use the high school’s woodshop. By the end of the conversation, Mr. Piche had volunteered his students to construct the obstacles.
As a treat for helping with the obstacles, students were allowed to try their hand flying a smaller drone, including wearing a VR headset. Police brought the equipment to the high school on May 15, 2025.
After his turn driving the drone over the school’s track field, student Gabriel Zumot said, “I think it’s amazing. It really gives students a chance for what it’s like becoming a cop.”
He also likes the Geometry in Construction class.
“It gives us a chance to get hands on for building,” he said.
This year’s GIC class only has six students, but next year 28 are signed up, Piche said. The program is also expected to expand to Fordson High next year.
The district is working towards a program where students could take geometry in construction as sophomores at Dearborn High or Fordson. As juniors, they would continue their construction studies at Michael Berry Career Center, and senior year could spend time in the trades program at Henry Ford College or a related co-op class, Mr. Piche said. The program would meet the geometry, algebra 2, and the senior math requirements, and students would finish with some carpentry and OSHA certifications.
Construction is slated to start this spring and be completed by the fall on a new carpentry lab at the Michael Berry Career Center. The work was funded through a $2.5 million state grant for vocational-technical education.
For now, the Geometry in Construction is looking for practical things to build during class and sponsors to pay for the materials.
Dearborn High started the Geometry in Construction class after Mr. Piche and math teacher Brian Myerscough attended training in Sault Saint Marie two summers ago. Another school created the curriculum that linked the required geometry lessons with practical construction applications – for example using slope to figure out a wheelchair ramp or how to build stairs. That district is able to build green houses to sell in the community to cover the cost of materials for the classes.
“I love being able to apply the math they learn,” Mr. Piche said. For some students, the class makes geometry much easier to understand because they visualize it through construction.
Student Sabine Kalot enjoyed flying the drone and said she signed up for the class because she wants to become a carpenter.
“I like the class. I prefer it over actual geometry because it is more hands-on.” she said.
