Real life problems getting solved in the classroom

By Ed Mahon

- emahon@centredaily.com

STATE COLLEGE — Colleagues describe State College Area High School agricultural science teacher Paul Heasley as an innovator, the first high school educator in the state to teach his students how to mass produce biodiesel.

CDT/Christopher Weddle

State College agriculture science teacher Paul Heasley talks about a diesel engine with students Dustin Gates, left, and Vance Brown at the high school's north building on Wednesday, June 17, 2009. CDT/Christopher Weddle

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“He’s just brilliant,” said Barry King, director of the high school’s Career Technical Center. “He’s so forward thinking.”

Heasley, who’s taught at his alma mater for 14 years, was recently honored as National FFA Organization’s Agriscience Teacher of the Year in Pennsylvania. Finalists for the national Teacher of the Year will be named next month.

He’s brought in $360,000 to the district through 36 grants, established a partnership that allows State College students to enroll in about 10 Penn State courses, and he has plans for his students to build wind and solar energy systems in the fall. Call him the Wizard of Westerly Parkway.

“It’s just thinking things through and saying, ‘What if?’ ” said Heasley.

Here’s what he and his students are thinking through at the moment: What if his students used glycerin, a byproduct of converting food waste oils into biodiesels, to feed deer instead of making soap? If they mix 5 percent of the syrupy liquid into the feed, would the deer know the difference? If the combo is eaten, could it be used as a supplemental feed that will provide extra energy for deer during winter?

“If they’ll eat it, then what we’ll be able to do is calibrate how much more energy this is putting in that animal,” Heasley said, holding up pieces of feed inside his State College workshop and classroom.

Heasley and his students are working with Penn State professor Gabriella Varga on the white-tailed deer project. For the biodiesel project, which began almost three years ago, he teamed up with State College chemistry teacher William Van Der Sluys.

Students can now produce 40 gallons of biodiesel at a time, which is then used to help heat elementary schools in the district. All told, they make about 400 gallons per year.

“I think we’ve had a great deal of cooperation from the other academic areas, and I think from even the business and industry part of ag and the input from the College of Ag have just really made this program grow,” said Heasley.

Heasley graduated from State College in 1975, and started teaching at his alma mater about 20 years later, after stints in Bloomsburg and Danville.

When he began, about 40 students were enrolled in the high school’s agricultural science classes. That number is up to about 200 now.

Two of them are 17-yearolds Dustin Gates and Vance Brown, the president and vice president of Little Lions FFA, respectively.

They both hope to study agricultural sciences at Penn State — dairy science and genetics for Gates, animal science for Brown.

Besides similar college and career aspirations, they share high opinions of Heasley.

“He has a knowledge base about so many different things.” said Gates. “That’s why he’s such a useful teacher.”

Added Brown, “He’s always excited about what he’s teaching.”

WHAT'S NEXT?

National FFA Organization, formerly known as Future Farmers of America, has more than 507,763 members in 7,438 chapters throughout the country. It will name the four finalists for the National Teacher of the Year program in July. Those four will travel to Indianapolis. for a national convention in October.