BrewsterConnections(PDF) - Brewster Academy

Project-Based
Learning Evolves
Once her action plan was accepted, Amy was ready to take the first step
toward creating her foundation, including writing a mission statement,
creating a team, finding financial backers, and getting accredited, which
she can do now that she is 18.
After writing to the orphanage and receiving no response, Amy began a
different approach. “I have branched out and am using outside resources of
people and organizations that might have connections back to the orphanage.”
English class is the one course that has helped her the most with skills
most applicable to her project, she says. “English has helped with writing
flow and using proper English because my mission statement and other
writing have to be official, professional.”
“This is really different than anything I’ve ever done before or anything in
the classroom. Creating foundations isn’t something I’ve learned in school;
I’m kind of going in blind. I don’t know what to expect because I’ve never
done it before. It’s not research. It’s doing. It’s action. I know there is a
chance of failure but there is chance of success.”
At the time of this interview, Amy was drafting and editing her mission
statement, but at the conclusion of her Brewster senior project, she says “I
will have a foundation I’ve created and go into life helping other kids; I’m
taking steps to help kids who are like me.”
Seeking Alternative Energy
An attempt to build and demonstrate a simple
way to generate energy
It was a physics class that sparked a senior project topic for Adam
Kolb (New Durham, New Hampshire) and Brady Palmer (Wolfeboro).
“In physics class we were making an energy efficient home for a third
world country and one of the things that we thought of in the project
was a methane toilet,” explained Adam, referring to the gas that could be
collected for use as fuel. “Then we cleaned it up a little and thought we
would do organic material.”
“Our goal is to create a biomasss generator that we can use here at the
school, not just to leave behind at the school, but so other students can
pick up and evolve it,” he added.
Just how easy is it?
Physics has played a huge part as far as understanding energy efficiency
yet we want to make something that someone doesn’t need a background
in science to build, Adam said.
We want to keep it simple so that our prototype could be used by a
developing country, Brady added.
“We found that over eight-weeks at 80 degrees F the biomass compost
would create enough methane gas that’s flammable. Aside from cooking
you could use it for heating and lighting,” Adam explained.
Although we could harvest the compost right on campus from dining hall
waste, according to Mr. Gorrill pig manure is the most potent for creating
methane and that is available from local farmers, explained Brady, adding
that they were still working out the logistics of transporting this organic
matter back to campus.
Once the machine is closed
off and the mass is locked
in and burns, it should not
give off an odor, Adam was
quick add.
Classroom Impact
Both boys attributed time
spent working in STAD
groups (student team
achievement divisions) to
their ability to understand
what it takes to work
within a group, including
not splitting up work but
learning how to function
effectively as a team. “When
you are working in a STAD,
you know how to split up
the work. When you work
with a group you learn you
need to split up the work
for the good of the group
to get things done,” Brady
explained.
“When we have two ideas
about the same thing, we
Adam Kolb
Brady Palmer
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