Coffee grounds are about the last thing you’d find children willing to play with, unless somehow someone repackaged the soggy brown bits as a science experiment.
But for the third- and fourth-graders at Acacia Academy, coffee grounds have become a source of intense interest, thanks to an innovative lesson plan concocted by Acacia teacher Betsy Hoshaw and Acacia’s head of school, Rob Hoshaw.
The Hoshaws’ plan is a model of simplicity and local-mindedness.
Tasked with finding a way to involve the students in hands-on learning about the environment, they found a perfect example right down the street.
Located at Main Street United Methodist Church, the 3-year-old private Christian school is constantly looking for community support for its education curriculum.
Enter Ann Ihms, co-owner, with husband David Ihms, of Criterion Water Labs LLC.
And enter the city of Kokomo’s stormwater “rain gardens,” located right along South Main Street.
The Hoshaws decided that with the Ihms’ help, and some encouragement from the city’s engineering department, they could develop a science experiment that combines the Christian concept of environmental stewardship and water filtration.
Very simply, the Acacia students are planning to use carbonized coffee grounds to filter stormwater.
Using activated carbon to filter water is an old concept.
The city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant and the local Indiana-American drinking water plant both use forms of carbon in filtering systems. Activated charcoal is often used in these types of processes.
Acacia student Hope Braun said the students were getting mixed results in their attempts to filter water during a Wednesday lab session.
“The grounds are always getting in the water, and making it brown,” she said.
At the same time, she was familiar with the basic reason for filtering stormwater and sanitary sewer discharges.
“If we didn’t do it, people could get really sick,” she said.
“We have the whole process in mind, but we don’t know how effective it will be,” Betsy Hoshaw said, adding that she’s hoping to enter the experiment in a national environmental science competition hosted by the Siemens Corp.
Outside the lab, Ann Ihms had prepared some coffee grounds in different batches. One batch had been run through a heating process until mostly carbonized. Carbonization (otherwise known as burning) creates microscopic cavities in materials, where impurities can be stored.
Ihms said she wants to have another scientist use electron microscopy to show the students what the cavities look like, magnified.
In the meantime, the children were experimenting with simply microwaving some of the grounds, to achieve a basic level of carbonization. The idea is that eventually, they’ll learn more about how effective each of the batches are at filtering impurities.
And down the road, Betsy Hoshaw even plans to make sandbags, out of gardening cloth, to hold batches of carbonized coffee grounds. The students will then place the bags in the city’s rain gardens — small street-level retention areas for stormwater — to aid in the filtration process.
“They’re seeing the accomplishment of something happening, and to me that’s a big deal,” she said.
And it’s not something the students will just look at and set aside, she added.
“I suspect this is going to be kind of a long-term thing,” she said. “I want to take the same premise, and take it a step farther next year.”
• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at 765-454-8569 or via email at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com
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