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At least for three days last week, Elise Truchan was a student and a teacher.

The Quaker Valley sophomore led Junior Treehouse Master classes last week for middle and high school students to learn how to build their own treehouses.

She's somewhat of a master of the subject herself.

It was only after the family built a treehouse in February 2015 they discovered Leet Township prohibits such structures in the front yards of residential areas, the family said. After more than a year of wrangling with Leet officials, Elise dismantled the treehouse – an eighth-grade Girl Scout project – and rebuilt it last year it in her backyard.

The family's story generated international attention.

“I thought that this experience with treehouses could be passed to others who want to build a treehouse or another structure but don't have enough information to start doing this,” Elise said. “I decided to go with this project idea when I realized that I was able to share my experience with others and possible inspire others to build something that they have dreamed of making.”

Elise has been a Girl Scout since kindergarten and is using the treehouse workshops to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award.

“I want to teach the students that there are many aspects of building a treehouse or another structure,” she said. “I want to make sure that the students understand that planning the structure is the most important part of creating something because planning consists of figuring out every step that needs to be taken.

“I also tell the students that when planning they should always keep in mind that they need to think of things that they want for their structure, but also what they are able to do. Safety is also something that I often talk about because they need to take precautions to build in safe conditions and to also make their structure safe to go in.”

Her class covered basic building skills, laws and codes, career fields in engineering and architecture, designing a structure and the planning process.

Elise's mother, Vicki, is proud of her daughter's accomplishments.

“She took a bad situation and turned it around into something positive,” Vicki Truchan said. “She decided that she wanted to take her own experience and teach others so that they could build something with their own hands the way she did. She also wanted to arm them with information so that they didn't run into the same legal issues that she did when she built her own treehouse.”

In a hands-on sense, Elise showed the students the proper use of screws, screwdrivers and wood.

Elise has no plans to build anything else in the near future, however, she does feel she can make a career out of this hobby.

“I would love to keep building,” she said. “Right now I am planning on going into a career involving architecture and engineering, but I have not fully decided what I will do.”

Matthew Peaslee is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.

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