New Ulm Public Schools’ small engine class fixes appliances and yard tools for the community.
The students in the small engine classes at New Ulm Public Schools’ CTE Center offer to fix small engine-powered appliances for the New Ulm and surrounding area community as a class project, giving them work to do in class.
The class started work on the community-provided machines on Oct. 6, and is going to continue work on them until late Dec.
The small engines class can lead to students having a career in small engine-related jobs like, professional motocross team, Arctic Cat dealer, Polaris dealer, or even fixing small appliances for a career.
Learning about and working on small engines is important. “Everyone’s gonna have a lawnmower or a chainsaw or an ATV that they gotta take care of at some point,” said Mr. Dustin, showing the importance of learning how to repair and maintain a small engine yourself.
The most common problems dealt with in small engines? “Dirty carbs. A lot of people put gas in the engines and let them sit, gas ends up going bad and clogging the entire fuel system,” Dustin said.
Most commonly brought in small engine-powered machines include: lawnmowers, snowblowers, weed wackers, and pressure washers, as they are all machines left out in the elements, which ends up clogging the fuel system.
The small engines class fixes these problems and gets valuable learning experience in how to diagnose and maintain appliances for daily use in their future lives.
