To get someone interested in a job in construction, they first have to be aware of jobs in construction.

That logic led the Manitoba Construction Sector Council (MCSC) to a partnership this spring with ChatterHigh, an online platform getting high school students to explore career opportunities in an engaging way.

ChatterHigh takes the information on career and education options on the internet and brings it to students primarily through a 10-minute daily quiz that gets students searching career and post-secondary websites for answers to expand their knowledge of what is possible after graduation. The questions also get more personalized over time as students indicate interest toward specific careers.

“There are several outcomes of the action of searching for information,” said Lee Taal, founder of ChatterHigh. “One is that students will learn a little nugget of info. More importantly, students build the skill of going to these websites and finding facts, which will serve them throughout their careers.”

For MCSC, the goal is obviously to have students researching jobs in the construction industry. To do that, they had ChatterHigh run the Trade Up Manitoba Career Pathways Competition for Manitoba high schools on the platform’s daily quiz. The competition wasn’t solely based on construction jobs, but had construction questions from MCSC mixed in with questions about other industries.

“By incentivizing the daily quiz, MCSC was giving themselves the ability to get in front of more kids than just the ones who think they’re interested in construction,” noted Taal. “MCSC knows the career teachers in high schools can’t make their classes all about construction. But the rising tide lifts all boats. If you can get more students going into post-secondary programs across the board, that’s bound to help the construction industry too.”

The competition ran from April 15 to May 24 and saw 1,209 questions answered by 224 participants across 22 schools – a sharp increase in participation on the platform. Perhaps the most important stat was that 1,218 web pages were visited by students throughout the competition – many of which were construction company and trade school sites.

Pembina Trails Collegiate blew away the competition in Manitoba with the greatest participation among students. That was aided by the fact that several of their Life Works courses – a mandatory course for students in Grades 9 to 11 at the school – were already using ChatterHigh prior to the competition.

Lindsay Malcolm is one of the teachers who teaches the Life Works course at Pembina Trails, and noticed the shift in content during the competition thanks to MCSC.

“During the competition, a lot more of the questions were trades related, which was good for the students to get exposure to those types of careers,” said Malcolm. “A lot of them are very focused on the university track. After having done this competition, they did tell us that they were exposed to more careers and post-secondary options that they had no idea about.”

In her end-of-year discussions with students to review the course, more exposure to the trades was a common request.

“A lot of students told me they’d like more hands-on activities, particularly in the trades, to see what those jobs entail and to physically work with some of the tools and materials that were mentioned in the ChatterHigh quizzes.”

Anita Fedoruk also had her Grade 9 Life Works courses at Windsor Park Collegiate participate in the competition. She noticed a difference between her first semester students who didn’t use ChatterHigh and students in her second semester course that partook in the competition.

“I had students create vision boards of where they see themselves going after high school,” said Fedoruk. “The students who participated in the Trade Up Manitoba competition had projects that were much more realistic. There was a more broad outlook of the potential careers in those projects.”

With students having the opportunity to attend the Louis Riel Arts and Technology Centre in their Grade 11 and 12 years – where they can attain professional certificates and begin apprenticeship programs while in high school – getting students to consider options like jobs in the trades even in Grade 9 is integral in her mind.

“I just want to create awareness, because we only know what we know,” said Fedoruk.

Thanks to ChatterHigh and the Trade Up Manitoba Career Pathways Competition, more high school students know that jobs in construction can lead to a great career.