Science Leaders News Correia Middle School Scientist in Residence Field Trip
Last year, the team at Sapphire Energy created an awe-inspiring booth for the San Diego Science Festival EXPO. The booth was truly “Green fuels 101.” They showed how Green Biodiesel is made from algae, with giant 6-foot tall vials of algae. Sapphire’s scientists explained the basics of organic chemistry to an audience of all ages – and this is the topic of every pre-med college student’s nightmare class! To do this, they brought in a variety of items with a lot of naturally-occurring scents: oranges, lemons, limes, even pine!
If last year’s booth sounds impressive, wait until you see what they have done this year! Over the past several months, Jason Pyle, Sapphire’s CEO, and Jillian Blatti, a UCSD graduate student who is researching biofuels at Sapphire, have been visiting Correia Middle School’s “Environmental Science” class for 8th graders, taught by Ms. Elizabeth Diestch. This partnership has been brought together by UCSD’s ScienceBridge and Correia’s participation in GEAR-UP for college.
The scientists taught the environmental science class about algae and biofuels. Following the introductory lessons, Dr.s Blatti & Pyle have actually helped the 8th graders make their own biodiesel! And finally, the students burned the biodiesel they made and compared the energy density with motor oil, finding that the two oils contain the same amount of energy, but “Green Diesel” contains many fewer pollutants.
The project continued when Correia’s young environmental scientists took a field trip to Vertex on March 17th. In addition to a tour of Sapphire’s facilities, the students got to see the labs where they engineer algae, grow algae, distill the oil, and produce diesel. All of these amazing efforts will culminate at THIS year’s science festival, where Correia’s young scholars will take their turn to teach YOU about “Green Diesel 101”!
