From the Cafeteria to the Gas Tank (A Learn and Serve America Grantee)

It’s lunchtime at Heritage High School and the teachers are in the staff room discussing their upcoming weekend. Gwen Thompson, the school’s advanced placement chemistry and physics teacher, expresses frustration that she can only buy fuel for her new biodiesel car in Portland, Oregon, at a few scattered filling stations, which is a good ten miles from Vancouver, Washington where the high school is located.

Jim Neiman, Heritage’s Careers in Technical Education (CTE) teacher, who also happens to be an owner of a biodiesel truck, looks up with interest. “I wonder what we might be able to produce from the leftover cooking oil that comes from the school cafeteria deep fryer?” he asks.

The teachers spend the weekend researching biodiesel production on the Internet and Gwen experiments with producing a few mini-batches in her school lab during her prep time. Two weeks later, Gwen, the lab scientist, and Jim, the small engines expert, hatched the beginning of a service learning project, now in its second year, which has ignited students’ initiative, curiosity, and creativity, as well as break-the-mold collaboration among students, teachers, departments, and the community.

With grant support from the CESNW Service Learning Network, Heritage teachers Gwen and Jim were able spend time together last year planning and collaborating on their project, determining the learning goals and standards that would be met, and researching equipment requirements for a processor that would convert the cafeteria grease into fuel (the Evergreen School District also pitched in to help with start-up costs and new equipment).

When the teachers brought the idea to their students (which included a mix of students from AP chemistry, career and tech small engines class, and science club) the response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. It was a chance to help the environment AND learn something new. “We wanted to get kids excited about applying their learning towards an issue, like reducing our carbon footprint, that has the potential to change their world,” says Jim.

Senior Jennifer Harkin says the opportunity to raise awareness amongst her peers about the environmental impact was what initially drew her to the project last year. “We are recycling what we have and already use in the cafeteria,” she explains.

But before the waste material from the cafeteria could be recycled, there was a lot of experimentation, as the students and their teachers worked together to create a safe and successful process for converting the waste grease into usable fuel. The process involved heating and circulating the kitchen grease at 120 °F in a student-modified hot water heater and adding a methanol reactant and lye catalyst. As the esterification reaction proceeded, biodiesel was produced, along with glycerin, a by-product, which the students used to create grease-cutting soap now used in the school’s science and small gas engines labs.

As part of the biodiesel project, students routinely apply concepts pulled directly from the pages of a typical chemistry textbook, including acid-based properties, solute and solvent interactions, concentration and stoichiometric calculations, equilibrium, and reaction rates. “This project gives us a unique perspective on the math and science concepts that we are learning in our other classes. It’s more relevant than just reading a text book,” says senior Jason Moss.

In addition to the increased relevance, the authentic nature of service learning naturally demands increased rigor and accountability. This can been seen in the heightened responsibility of students working in the biodiesel lab. “They must document what is done during the cleaning and refinement process so that when they leave the lab and a new student comes in, she knows where to pick up” Jim says. Adds senior Sarah Mann, “In the lab, students are in charge and expected to make sure stuff gets done. We are treated as adults.”

For Heritage High School teachers Jim Neiman and Gwen Thompson, service learning and their biodiesel project has enabled them to re-imagine the high school learning experience. “Instead of thinking about classes, we as teachers need to be thinking about the real world experiences that we want our students to have and how we can offer them through projects, Jim says. “With service learning projects, students can take their own ideas, explore them, apply their learning, and work together on solving problems to benefit their community,” adds Gwen. Read the complete article.