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HAITI-BIODIESEL Feb-17-2010 (540 words) With photo. xxxn
Chicago students' science project offers promise for Haitian school
By Daniel P. Smith
Catholic News Service
CHICAGO (CNS) -- The two schools could not be more different.
Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School on Chicago's South Side, with approximately 1,700 female students, typifies America's middle-class life.
The Lakal Pa Nou School, located in Pichon, Haiti, has 280 students in grades 1 to 6. With no electricity or plumbing, the four one-story buildings are characteristic of the hardscrabble life students face each day.
The two schools are nevertheless connected by one ambitious science project: a solar-powered biodiesel processor capable of delivering electricity and a degree of modern life. The project of Mother McAuley's EcoMacs Club has taken on added importance following the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti.
"With this unexpected event, the sooner we can get (the biodiesel processor) there the better, because they really need our help," said Mother McAuley senior Mary O'Donnell, one of 10 students on the EcoMacs biodiesel team.
In late November, Roz Iasillo, who chairs the Mother McAuley science department, led the EcoMacs to Thornridge High School for a look at the biodiesel processor that students at the Dolton school had constructed. The educational trip coincided with a request from Partner for People and Place, a nonprofit organization that was seeking a solution to the Lakal Pa Nou School's meager assets.
Once they had decided to build a biodiesel processor for Lakal Pa Nou, located 60 miles southeast of Port-au-Prince, Iasillo and the EcoMacs committed more than 200 hours to planning and building it, including nearly 80 hours over Christmas break. The EcoMacs videotaped the entire process so that the project can be repeated in Haiti.
"It's been a complete whirlwind with a lot of hard work, trial and error and construction," Iasillo told the Catholic New World, newspaper of the Chicago Archdiocese.
To construct the $3,000 processor, the EcoMacs collected donations of products and money from area businesses. With the processor complete, the EcoMacs are now tackling the project's second phase -- raising funds to transport the processor to Haiti, a task made more difficult by the recent earthquake. Hopes are high for the processor to arrive in Haiti by spring.
"We initially planned to have the processor done around Easter break, but the earthquake added a sense of urgency and the girls responded," Iasillo said. "We'll have it there as soon as the folks down there can accommodate it."
The processor will combine the seeds of the abundant Jatropha curcas plant with solar-powered energy panels to create a sustainable system for producing fuel, which can earn cash for local families by way of producing fertilizer, soap and lamp fuel.
Excess energy generated by the solar panels will be used to provide electricity for the school, thereby allowing the school to expand its curriculum beyond the sixth grade with night classes. It is a project that offers great potential to the Lakal Pa Nou School and the local Pichon community, a fact not forgotten by Iasillo or her students.
"We stress the Catholic ideal of being of service and this was a humanitarian project from the start," Iasillo said. "The students invested a lot of time and energy here and will not get much in return except the ability to share what they have with those who have little."
END
Copyright (c) 2010 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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