BOULDER — For Dave Pence, an instructor at Boulder Valley schools’ Career and Technical Education Center, green inspiration came in the form of a 1998 Nissan Frontier pickup truck.
He found the pickup, which had no motor but a decent body, on Craigslist for $150 and saw it as an opportunity for his students to do something they had never done before — turn an old gas guzzler into an all-electric vehicle.
“When I saw the truck, I thought about Boulder Tech, and I thought we could infuse a little imagination into the program,” Pence said.
Since October, when the pickup was brought to Boulder Tech’s auto shop, students in the collision repair program have been getting the vehicle ready for its transition, stripping off the vehicle’s bed, building a platform for the batteries and smoothing out dents in the body.
Pence and his fellow instructors, Lary Long and Bill Uttich, also brought in local experts in electric vehicles to help the class learn the principles of how to power a vehicle with a plug instead of gasoline.
“There’s a lot of people that have that kind of technical background in Boulder,” Pence said. “This is a learning project for the teachers as well as the students.”
New experience
For Spencer Roff, who is graduating at the end of the year, the old black pickup is an opportunity to do something totally different.
“It’s just a new experience — you don’t get to do this every day,” said Spencer, whose two brothers and father all took the collision repair class at Boulder Tech before him. “We’re just trying to figure everything out. There’s never been an electric vehicle built in the class before.”
This year, about 45 students are taking the collision repair class, where they will have an opportunity to work on the electric pickup.
In all, more than 200 students take classes at the Career and Technical Education Center, which is open to any high school student in the district who chooses to open enroll for elective credits.
The center offers training in everything from cosmetology to animal sciences. Next year, the construction trades program plans to add green-building techniques to its curriculum.
Spencer said he chose to enroll in Boulder Tech because he enjoys working with his hands and learning by doing.
“I’m just not the kind of person who wants to sit in class all day to learn,” he said.
