Examines proven strategies designed to help learners achieve greater personal, academic, and professional success. Learners will apply personal responsibility thinking and behaviors; self- management, awareness, and motivation strategies; as well as interdependence skills to develop a proactive life plan.

Builds on the safety and sawmill knowledge from previous classes to provide learners with more in-depth working knowledge of sawmills and their related hazards. Examines the need for regular preventive and essential maintenance of equipment, tools, and blades, and the safety challenges related to each, including where maintenance fails. Prepares students to prevent injuries, fatalities and break-downs in a mill environment within a safe and secure dedicated learning facility.

Identify wood species and develop knowledge on the applications for different woods.  Learners will explore these concepts via hands-on experience, and establish basic understanding of wood cell types, identification characteristics, and material features. 

Explores the entire forest products supply-chain including sectors, current trends, career paths, and environments related to wood manufacturing. Establishes the importance of health and safety practices in the industry and introduces learners to various hazards they will encounter across industry, including sawmills, wood shops, and industrial settings. Learners will develop basic knowledge of OSHA, mills and shops in the forest products industry, and will have the opportunity to earn an NTC Forklift Operator Certificate.

This course is designed to provide the foundational knowledge and skills to manufacture furniture. Topics covered include: furniture design styles, sourcing raw material for projects, tool selection, machine operation, joinery and furniture construction.

Explores the general overview of plant layout, machine centers, and different product flow in a lumber manufacturing setting.  Learners focus on the mix of species, and how these can be utilized in various product lines, and examine the processing of lumber through sawing, edging, and trimming manufacturing operations.

Expands of the skills previously introduced through the use of more advanced standard grade classifications and methods.  Learners build additional experience in the grading of hardwood lumber and logs and enhance their merchandising knowledge and understanding with emphasis on hands-on exercises and techniques.

Expands of the skills previously introduced through the use of more advanced standard grade classifications and methods.  Learners build additional experience in the grading of hardwood lumber and logs and enhance their merchandising knowledge and understanding with emphasis on hands-on exercises and techniques.

Explore rough mill operations in secondary wood manufacturing with emphasis on material flow, machine setup, and process efficiency. Learners operate planers, ripsaws, and chopsaws safely; analyze yield data; and develop rip and cut lists that meet production specifications and optimize material use.

Explore Computer Numeric Control (CNC) Routers and how they are used in the secondary manufacturing industry. Learners will attain a fundamental understanding of Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and Computer Aided Machining (CAM) software as well as machine operation. Learners will also get a basic overview of the types of tooling used with CNC routers.

Examine the types of adhesives and adhesion processes that are used in the wood manufacturing industry. Focus areas include adhesive selection, application methods and clamping procedures for wood products. In addition, students will learn about surface preparation for different types of finishes and their application methods.

Operate finishing machine centers, such as manual and automated moulders, spindle shapers, and matchers. Additional topics include resolving machining defects, calculating surface quality and production rates.

Explore the fundamentals of tool geometry as well as the different tooling materials used in the secondary manufacturing industries. Hands on focus areas will include grinding knives and setting up cutterheads to be used in finish mill machine centers.

This course is designed to review and develop fundamental concepts of mathematics in the areas of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, measurement and data. Algebra topics emphasize simplifying algebraic expressions, solving linear equations and inequalities with one variable, solving proportions and percent applications. Geometry and trigonometry topics include; finding areas and volumes of geometric figures, applying similar and congruent triangles, applying Pythagorean Theorem, and solving right triangles using trigonometric ratios. Measurement topics emphasize the application of measurement concepts and conversion techniques within and between U.S. customary and metric system to solve problems. Data topics emphasize data organization and summarization skills, including: frequency distributions, central tendency, relative position and measures of dispersion. Special emphasis is placed on problem solving, critical thinking and logical reasoning, making connections, and using calculators.

Explore current technology and automated machinery in the wood industry. A combination of software types will be used to showcase different applications of digital manufacturing. Subjects covered will include file types such as raster and vector, CAD and CAM software and machine center operating systems. Machine centers utilized in the class will include CNC routers, a laser engraver and more.

Apply advanced CNC router techniques, such as work holding techniques, tool parameters, material selection, and explore specialty machining applications. Learners will see how CNC manufactured parts are incorporated into greater assemblies and larger projects.

Examine the biological and mechanical properties of wood. Topics will range from tree growth and cell development to strength and physical attributes. This course will provide students the fundamental background needed to understand the natural material of wood.