Student-built Eiffel Tower featured at Delcastle Tech

Karl Baker | The News Journal

A 20-foot scale model of the Eiffel Tower sat prominently next to the flag pool at Delcastle Technical High School on Friday to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris one week ago.

Students and staff exiting the school, near Newport, peered at the welded strips of gold-painted iron sitting on caster wheels after the final bell rang in the afternoon. It’s an appropriate way to memorialize the victims of the terrorist attack, said school spokeswoman Kathy Demarest.

“They’ll all leave here today, walking by this,” Demarest said, “and a little remembrance is not a bad thing.”

Terrorists from the Islamic State killed 130 people on Nov. 13 in a series of attacks at a music venue, a soccer stadium and on Paris-area streets,

Even the first lady of Delaware, Carla Markell, was struck by both the significance, as well as the technical skill, that was illustrated by the tower. She arrived at the school Friday to tape an educational video about addiction recovery.

“I was moved to tears by this amazing structure out front,” Markell said. “I love these [vocational] tech schools.”

Though initially built for the school’s homecoming celebration in October, the sheet metal-based structure's prominent placement Friday served as a way for its student fabricators to honor the people of France, said John Fitzgerald, the school's metalwork instructor.

“It worked out to be significant in light of Paris, but it was also a theme for our homecoming dance,” Fitzgerald said. “It looks like the real tower; it has four observation decks that come out.”

The sheet metal class is one of 23 career-training focuses at the school, Fitzgerald said. Hands-on programs, such as that one, can help students absorb the principals of core classes, such as mathematics, he said.

But it doesn’t come cheap. Fitzgerald’s annual budget, just for materials, is $7,000, he said.

Kenneth Oliver, a junior who wants to be an engineer, said banding together strips of iron can be frustrating at times, but it taught him how to best confront the planning and fabricating challenges of a big project.

“My dream is to become an engineer,” Oliver said, “civil and mechanical.”

Though these technical classes help students prepare for hard sciences in college or for vocational careers, it is the creative benefit that Fitzgerald first highlights when asked about the program.

"The feeling of accomplishment the kids get," he said," "when they stand back and say, 'Look what we've done.' "

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.