Students in the Biodiesel group ambitiously set out to convince school officials to use biodiesel in school buses and tractors instead of diesel fuel. According to Biodiesel students, those vehicles were easy to target since they already had diesel fuel engines which could run biodiesel without any retrofits. Staff and administrators had their doubts about what the students could accomplish, but the students persisted.
After receiving a donation of one gallon of biodiesel from a scientist, Biodiesel students met at a science fair and began conducting tests. The group compared biodiesel with regular diesel, and observed that the diesel fuel spewed far more emissions than the biodiesel. Armed with their research results and experiment findings, the students set out to persuade the school administration to switch to biodiesel.
Students made a presentation to the Transportation Coordinator, the Head of the Physical Plant and the Director of Finance and Operations. After the presentation and a round of high fives from the Transportation Coordinator, the students gained permission to test the biodiesel on school buses and tractors. At the end of the year Biodiesel students proposed a tank installation at Friends’ Central that would hold all the biodiesel for school vehicles. They are hoping that some of the $5,000 grant money Mr. Doug Ross’s class earned from the competition sponsored by Wawa and Manko, Gold, Katcher and Fox will be used for the tank.