Dave Richards' Greenhouse and Landscaping students aren't just constructing a 700-square-foot garden for the 66th annual Fifth Third Bank Home and Garden Show at the Cleveland I-X Center for a school project.
It's the real-world work experience they are obtaining during the assignment that has the students excited.
Thirty-one Auburn Career Center students in Richards' class once again have been selected to participate in the home and garden show, where this year's theme is "The Romance of France."
The students, working with multiple landscaping industry partners like the Pattie Group, have been on the project since October while getting advice from professional landscapers, Richards said.
The students researched French landscape architecture online, created ideas and melded all of their favorite ones into one final design.
The students then built and disassembled the garden at the Auburn Career Center before bringing it to the I-X Center on Feb. 2, where they had four days to rebuild it again.
"It took several weeks to first build it," Richards said. "We worked out all of the bugs in the construction early to figure out all the problems ahead of time because we only have a couple of days to build it at the I-X Center."
The garden includes a natural stone waterfall, landscape lighting, blocks, brick pavers, a flat-panel television and real plants.
The garden will be handicap accessible as well, Richards said.
Spena Interlocking Stone in Cleveland donated between $25,000 and $30,000 worth of block, and Herman Losely and Son Nursery in Perry, Ohio, shipped tender materials to the I-X Center in a heated vehicle for free.
"They are helping the kids have an authentic learning experience," Richards said. "This is a tremendous experience for students. It's real-world, authentic learning and they get to see the fruits of their hard labor and share it with 250,000 people who are going to visit the garden."
Junior Graham Loftus enrolled in the class because his dad is a professional landscaper.
Although this is his first real landscaping project, he is excited to soon become a landscaper himself.
"It turns out, this is what I want to do," he said. "I think I'll go straight into the work force (after high school). I want to start working with my dad, and maybe I'll own my own company some day."
Senior Mike Valentino has had plenty of landscaping experience before this, but the help he received from the professionals has been invaluable, he said.
"They've been fantastic," he said. "Usually in the workplace, if you screw up, you get yelled at. They don't nag on us, they show us how to do things the right way and help out."
He said he has enjoyed the experience of constructing the garden and hopes it pays off.
"There are so many job opportunities in the field. Everywhere you go has landscaping," he said. "I love the outdoors, I can't sit behind a desk.
"I think it's great we can put something together like this as students, and it is fantastic that we are getting the opportunity to do this because so many people admire what we do and it will help us get our name out there for the future."
Richards said the experience should help the students while job searching once they graduate from high school or college.
"This is relevant education for these children," he said.
"We are giving them experience so they are ready to go to college or into the work force with real-world skills that people are looking for."
The home and garden show will run Feb. 7-15.