BROCKTON — The auto-shop department at Brockton High School is getting a clean-energy, battery-powered update.
As Massachusetts plans to move away from gas-powered cars over the next decade, Brockton High is bringing in tools and equipment to its automotive technology classrooms to educate students on how to work with electric vehicles.
In the basement of the BHS fine arts building lives a full-sized car repair shop, with two vehicle lifts and a handful of students who learn to service real automobiles.
“Electric vehicles are going to be to future,” said BHS senior and auto-tech student Enrique Cruz. “If you want to get into the industry, you’re going to have to learn it.”
The program trains students on critical auto-repair skills ranging from fixing wheel axels to internal air-conditioning systems and engines. With new grant cash coming in from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, their training will extend to electric cars.
“It’s going to further my learning and further what I can do in the future,” said Cruz.
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BHS students and staff can bring their cars into the school's garage and the auto-shop students will provide oil changes and other services for free. The new equipment will allow students to work with electric-powered engines in addition to gas-powered ones.
“This program is going to be awesome,” said automotive tech teacher Wayne Denham, who’s worked in the auto engineering field for roughly 30 years. He added that the funding will “breathe a whole new life” into the program.
“They all want to learn and they’re good at it,” Denham said. “They want the newer stuff.”
A clean energy future
According to Katherine Antos, the undersecretary for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs , the state needs to add 34,000 jobs to the clean energy sector by 2030 in order to reach its climate goals.
“This is the moment we’re in now,” said Antos as she spoke to a large crowd at BHS Friday morning during an event celebrating the new addition to the school's automobile program. “We need to provide the resources to support that interest.”
As the state tries to get more electric cars on the market and on the roads, students at BHS can get ahead of the game by learning how to work with electric car engines before receiving their diplomas.
Denham said that the introductory skills students learn within their first two years — like under-car alignments, for example — will largely be the same for both types of cars, but with the new tools, “it just has an EV twist to it.”
He also said the program already educates students on the fundamentals of EV's, but now he can dive deeper into the electric car portion of his classes.
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The state is already working to switch yellow school buses from gas to electric, said Robin Sidman, founder and executive director of Project Green Schools. She said that this new grant money, which amounts to over $600,000, will “develop the next gen of excitement” and “put students at the forefront” of the electric vehicle movement.
"You're going to need that pipeline," she said. "That will help create the future workforce that will take these jobs."
“For sure, I would love to make a positive impact on the world,” said Cruz.
This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: 'Going to be awesome': Brockton High auto-shop students can now train on electric cars
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