PHOTO: Ben Miles, a junior at Riverton High School, lays a hardwood floor piece in an entryway on April 14, 2011 in Sandy, Utah. Miles is among a team of students at Canyons Technical Education Center building a house as part of class. They will sell the house to fund the construction-education program. Last year's house garnered $361,000. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Al Hartmann)

Ben Miles, a junior at Riverton High School, lays a hardwood floor piece in an entryway on April 14, 2011 in Sandy, Utah. Miles is among a team of students at Canyons Technical Education Center building a house as part of class. They will sell the house to fund the construction-education program. Last year’s house garnered $361,000. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Al Hartmann)

SALT LAKE CITY Students listen intently, scribbling equations in Roger Wilcox’s math class. They not only have to provide the correct answers to story problems they build them.

Seventeen high-school students at Canyons Technical Education Center have nearly completed construction of a 3,600-square-foot house from the ground up.

They’ve learned not only how to calculate the depth and height of stairs, but how to make adjustments as they hammer the stairs in place.

“It’s been a lot of learning by actual doing rather than learning straight out of the book,” said Alta High senior Dan Dimas. “You’re never looking at the same problem more than once. There’s a lot of thinking and problem solving.”

The on-site construction course offers up to eight concurrent-enrollment credits at Salt Lake Community College. Students from Canyons and Jordan school districts enroll in Canyons Technical courses.

Ben Miles, a junior at Riverton High, said he chose the class because he is considering a career in construction, possibly as a framer. In class recently, he made repeated cuts to a plank of hardwood flooring to make it fit around a heating vent.

“They learn high-quality craftsmanship,” said Wilcox, who teaches math, electrical wiring and other components of the course. “If they don’t do it right, we make them do it again.”

Fred Smith, the course’s other instructor, said the program offers a pathway for students to go into construction careers.

“There are thousands of jobs,” Smith said, ranging from suppliers and designers to plumbers and electricians.

In fact, the Utah Department of Workforce Services estimates there will be 4,000 openings in construction jobs each year for the next decade. Supervisors, sheet-metal workers and tile setters earn median wages of $20 an hour or more. For construction managers, the median wage is $33.60 an hour.

Canyons Superintendent David Doty launched a review of the district’s career and technical education programs in February. He has suggested that the district focus on steering students toward what the Department of Workforce Services considers “five-star jobs,” which are high-paying and high in demand. More than a quarter of those jobs are in the construction industry. Others are in business, engineering, health care and computers.

Hayden May, a Hillcrest High senior and the lone female student in the construction course, plans to go into construction management. She’s been offered a full scholarship at Salt Lake Community College. From there, she would like to continue on to earn a master’s degree in construction management.

“I just want to be able to have my own business, building houses,” said May, who also took the on-site construction course last year.

“At the end of the year, when I stepped back and looked at the house, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. I really built this house,’” May said. “I was really proud.”

Students plan to wrap up construction of the current house before May 26, when a public open house is scheduled before it goes on the market.

Last year’s house sold for $361,000. That money paid for this year’s house, including the land, materials and tools. Smith expects the new, five-bedroom house in Sandy will sell for up to $350,000.

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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com

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