Top: Sarah Berke, Connecticut BioBus Director, holds up a container of raw soybean oil that will be converted to biodiesel. Left: CURE President Paul Pescatello helps Amelia Green, 8, pour vegetable oil in the collection container for use in the next tank of fuel that will power Connecticut's BioBus.

A cleaner, greener BioBus arrived at the State Capitol today.  The popular lifescience mobile laboratory on wheels arrived powered by biodiesel, a fuel that now both propels the bus and

Read Paul Pescatello's  remarks to legislators.

powers the generators serving the scientific equipment on board. The adoption of biodiesel has been made possible through the generous support of Greenleaf Biofuels of Guilford, which has agreed to produce and supply the fuel to the BioBus for the next two years.

To mark the occasion, students working with BioBus educators converted their own vegetable oil from home into biofuel that can be used by the bus.  The conversion took place by adding methanol sodium hydroxide to the warmed vegetable oil, causing a chemical reaction called transesterification.  Afterwards biofuel was added to the BioBus tank.

Just prior to the Biofuel conversion, 9th graders from Hartford’s Sport and Medical Sciences Academy boarded the bus to conduct the Mystery of the Crooked Cell, an experiment from the BioBus curriculum that uses gel electrophoresis to explore genetic testing of disease.

After the Biofuel conversion, CURE President and CEO Paul Pescatello took the students on a tour of the Capitol

State Representatives Deborah Heinrich (D-Guilford and Madison) and Patricia Widlitz (D-Branford and Guilford) help Greenleaf Biofuels President Gus Kellogg pour biodiesel made of vegetable oil into Connecticut's BioBus. The BioBus is a mobile lifescience laboratory on wheels. The BioBus travelled to State Capitol on its maiden voyage as a biofuel-powered vehicle.

including a visit to the office of Governor M. Rodi Rell.  Gus Kellogg, Founder of Greenleaf Biofuels, gave a short talk on biofuel and its emerging importance.

“Going green is a logical step for the BioBus,” said Dr. Sarah Berke, director of Biobus Educational Programs. “It’s one more reason that the BioBus Programs are now Connecticut’s Number 1 hands-on science education experience.”

A project of CURE, the state bioscience organization, Connecticut’s BioBus is a 40-foot-long mobile science learning center outfitted with the latest in bioscience equipment and state-of-the-art computers.
Under the related BioConnection Program, which is also free of charge, schools are lent laboratory equipment, and teachers are trained to conduct in their own classrooms experiments from the curricula of Connecticut’s BioBus.

Curricula and teacher training in the CURE BioBus Educational Programs have recently been revised with a key goal in mind – preparing Connecticut students and teachers for the new state science mastery standards, including the Connecticut Mastery Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Test.