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Completed: The Classroom Bioreactor Project

"Our high school students are building a microalgae bioreactor with the help of scientists at NIST. This classroom bioreactor will enable students to do research projects that use microalgae to produce biofuels.

This project will require many materials that are not currently available at our high s... " MORE

This project will require many materials that are not currently available at our high school. Your support will enable us to move more quickly in the development of this project and include more students.

Gifts will enable us to purchase materials and involve more students in the project. For example, starting algae cultures and growth media using the requested items!

Our high school students will have the opportunity to do open-ended student driven original research through the bioreactor project.

My students need starter algae and growth media to learn how to incubate and grow algae for our classroom bioreactor. The cost of this proposal is $147, which includes shipping for any materials requested and fulfillment ."

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See Dr. P.'s class participating in this project! (Enlarge photos)

Nov 3, 2009

Dear Kevin Chu & Family, Stacey and Grace,

Thank you so much for your support of our Classroom Bioreactor Project. This was a new area for us so we were starting from scratch – no expertise and no equipment – and your support made a big difference. Your donation gave us two ingredients we really needed to get our project off the ground: a starting algae culture and encouragement. The Bioreactor students were so excited that people outside our group believed in our project.

Our project has progressed quickly and we now have a Toyota Tapestry grant to support us. We have built our first Bioreactor, grown algae, extracted oil from the algae, and learned how to make Biodiesel (from vegetable oil, not YET algae oil). The Bioreactor is in the back of our classroom and is one of the most popular places for visitors to see. It is so exciting for all the students in the classroom to have a real research project going on in the same room. Freshmen physics students are so interested and love to watch the seniors work on the Bioreactor. Students of all grades are interested in joining our group and everyone thinks it is the coolest research project that they have ever heard of.

We couldn't have gotten started when we did without your help. Thank you so much for believing in us!

With gratitude,
Dr. P.

Dr. P. sent this note after the project was fully funded:

Apr 13, 2009

Dear Kevin Chu & Family, Stacey and Grace,

Thank you so much for your support of the Classroom Bioreactor Project. With your donations, students will be able to learn how to grow and characterize algae - the first step in learning how to make new renewable fuels using in our Bioreactor. We will send an update once we have grown and characterized our first Chlorella.

Every journey starts with a very important first step. Thank you so much for getting us started on our journey to build a Classroom Bioreactor!

With gratitude,
Dr. P.

Dr. P.'s Classroom: Moderate Poverty School

Region:

Maryland

Where is the classroom located?

Submitted:

Mar 26, 2009 |

Expires:

Sep 01, 2009

Great news -- this project is now a reality! We ordered the materials and they were sent directly to the classroom.

Materials	Vendor	Price	#	Total
ALGAE, CHLORELLA	Carolina Biological Supply Company	$5.85	6	$35.10
MEDIA, ALGA-GRO(R) CONC.,PK/12	Carolina Biological Supply Company	$30.56	1	$30.56
MEDIA, ALGA-GRO (R) FRESHWATER	Carolina Biological Supply Company	$15.17	2	$30.34

Vendor Shipping Charges				$9.60
State Sales Tax				$4.80
3rd Party Payment Processing Fee				$1.44
Postage / Processing for Donor Thank-You Package				$9.00
Project Subtotal				$120.84
Optional Donation Towards Operating Costs				$26.53
TOTAL PROJECT COST				$147.37
3 Donors				-$149.38
To Go				$0.00