Tucked away in the back corner of a vacant office in an empty classroom, seven students and a physics teacher have cooked up a concoction they hope can make the world a better place.

It smells a little like french fries.

Using almost every free moment after school and during holiday breaks, students at Thornridge High School in Dolton have built the equivalent of a small refinery. In their lab, they turn used cooking oil into biodiesel—a more natural fuel for diesel-powered engines.

The students are excited about science and passionate about improving the environment—and they've grabbed the community's attention and led people to rally behind their biodiesel club.

Local restaurants and businesses are donating used cooking oil and friends and family members of the students are saving leftover grease to be turned into fuel.

A high school employee has been using the fuel in his diesel-powered vehicle and reporting back to the club, and some district officials are asking if the students can produce enough biodiesel to use in some mechanical equipment and, possibly, some district-owned vehicles.

"We want to have our Earth so it will still be here for future generations," said Gabrielle Yates, 17, a member of the club. "It's a political issue now. We want to make our environment better."

Joining a high school biodiesel club wouldn't seem to guarantee popularity. But members at Thornridge have been celebrated at school, acknowledged locally and catapulted to a national stage.

The students didn't start the project expecting to make money, but when they heard about something called the Lexus Eco Challenge, they entered and won a $10,000 cash prize. Now they're shooting for $50,000 in scholarship money in the contest's next round. Their plan is to tweak their refinery so it's more environmentally sound.Each of the students pocketed $1,000 of the $10,000 prize—which has made them the talk of the student body.

"My friends were skeptical about the club at first," Yates said. "But when they heard about the money, they changed their minds."

Students at Will County's Manhattan Junior High School also won a prize in the challenge.

What makes the Thornridge project unusual is that students persuaded local leaders to support them in their quest to improve the community.

"We want to go green," Thornton Township High Schools District 205 Supt. J. Kamala Buckner said. "But we cannot take credit for what students come up with. These students have become excited about science. The students have a desire to make the adults more aware and responsible to the environment and we're heeding the call."

The biodiesel club was started this year by physics teacher Brian Sievers, who saw it as a tool to teach his students how they could have a positive effect on the environment.

Most of the 25 students who joined were interested in learning more about the chemical process and how science was applied. Being part of a science-based club doesn't look too bad on a college application either, Sievers knew.

"I told them they could make something and say it's yours," he said. "They were fascinated by picking up a wrench and putting something together. When we learned about how to cook the biodiesel, it was like learning witchcraft."

They began building the refinery just a few weeks after the club started. About a month later they learned about the contest. Seven members soon became fixated on getting the project done faster to meet the contest deadline. As part of their work they gave demonstrations on biodiesel and talked to groups around the community about how to preserve the environment.

Part of what ignited the students' passion is that many live in towns near Interstate Highway 94, where each day diesel-fueled trucks release pollutants.

"Clean air is an issue, especially when you live near a city like Chicago," said junior Darryl Chavers, 17.

The students' tiny refinery looks like a converted hot-water tank, with pipes and hoses connected to pumps, barrels and buckets. But within 48 hours, the students can convert 20 gallons of smelly, used oil into fuel.

"The first time you use it, it smells like whatever was cooked in it—chicken skin, fish, french fries," said junior Terry Harris, 16.

The refinery uses electricity to run the pumps and other devices, so the students are working on installing solar panels to power the processor. That would make the entire project green and a candidate for the contest's next round, which awards two first-place prizes of $50,000 in scholarship money.

For Sievers, it's not the students' contest win or growing popularity that makes him proud. He said he is impressed that they're working so hard on a project while learning to be responsible about the environment.

"These kids are here until 8 at night. Instead of running the streets they are here working, focused and being involved. These are seven kids who for the rest of their lives can say, 'We built something,' " he said.

"They can hold their heads up high"

Good to see kids learning good things!

Ed