It's nice to know that real shop classes still exist. In my home province you needed to go to community college before they'd let you touch anything mechanical. I built an RC car out of wood in high school, that was about as advanced as shop class got.

On the "Canada is stupid" front, they only just legalized the importation of the Transformers Megatron figure - because when it was assembled into a P38 it was too realistic and was considered a replica firearm. Meanwhile I can go to my local Walmart and buy an airsoft gun or a BB gun (ever seen a high tech BB handgun? It looks exactly like a regular handgun), or go to a novelty store and buy a plastic replica gun that is pretty convincing. Why is Megatron banned while other replica guns that shoot projectiles are okay? Even better than that, I can (and have) go to my local gun range and rent any handgun I please to shoot on the range - without any firearms license at all. But if I want to buy a handgun for shooting on the range, I need to go through mountains of red tape, courses, screenings, fees, and cannot move it from my place of residence without a specific A to B transport permit. I like it here but dammit the government pisses me off sometimes.

Wow.

I'm amazed I missed this thread altogether since I came back to Armorama around Feburary of this year, and only to discover it now. See what happens when you don't watch the local news, or model for a long time? That high school is not far from where I live.

What strikes me though... is why they let a high school tech shop toy around with a rare historical artifact... I'd rather see this in the hands of professionals, let alone kids. For instance, I built a chopper in tech class working with metal, and let me tell you, it takes time to acquire the necessary skills to properly weld and work with metal. It's like your giving these students the firefly to experiment and test their skills on. I'd rather see trained professionals restore this tank imo. That's just me.

i'd rather have a load of kids do it that a dozen stiffs, who will then sterilize it , and hide it away.

Cool project and cooler teacher. We got to build bird houses and ceramics Real good lesson for real life. These students not only get history on hands, they get hands on with refurbishing. What a grand idea. They will walk away with more than your average student. Best of luck to them..