Through the doors of the only HVAC classroom at Dover High School, five teenage boys saunter in with backpacks slung over a shoulder, some sliding in on skateboards. They joke, laugh and mess and around.
What you might not realize is this small team is developing a project that could save lives in their community.
For the past few months, the 11th and 12th grade students in Mike Christman’s higher level heating, ventilation and air conditioning course have been working with the Dover Fire Department to create a dryer for firefighters’ gear.
A gear dryer can improve the fire department’s ability to quickly respond to calls and reduce cancer rates among firefighters, the students explained.
“We never knew about the problem [of gear not drying quickly] and the dangers it caused until we started doing more research into it, and we realized that this is a really good thing to bring into the community,” student Logan Ellis said.