Episode #4 is Here! Presenting: The French Fry Boat!

Five years ago, Professor Tony Dilernia decided he wanted to make Kingsborough Community College's Green Boat run on vegetable oil. Fuel was very expensive, and he knew that the college cafeteria had a lot of oil left over from cooking French fries. Hundreds of gallons of it—more than it would take to run a whole fleet of boats!

Using vegetable oil as fuel is as old as the diesel engine itself. When Rudolf Diesel designed his engine in the late 19th century, it was used in tractors, which farmers fueled with peanut oil. Today, lots of eco-cars run on vegetable oil. But the company that makes their engines said they wouldn’t work in boats. So, Professor Dilernia and his crew made all the modifications (changes) to the engine on their own. Mostly, this meant figuring out how to warm up the vegetable oil before it’s pumped into the engine. As you’ll learn in the video, this is because vegetable oil becomes thick when it’s cool and can clog up the fuel lines.

But how to do it?

A boat sucks in sea water to cool down its engine. As the engine cools, the water warms up. Normally, this water just gets dumped back into the ocean. But Professor Dilernia knew it was the solution to his problem. He would start his boat engine on diesel fuel. Meanwhile, the warm water that cooled the engine could be diverted (moved) to heat the vegetable oil. Then, with the flip of a switch, the engine would start running on the now-liquidy vegetable oil. Simple and brilliant!

One last clue!

And then it'll be show time...

Now put 'em all together and what do they spell?

Clue #2 About Episode #4

It's a beautiful Brooklyn day for a clue. Are you ready?

Hurry and comment with your guesses! Episode #4 is on the way, any day....

What's Up for May? Here's Comes a Clue!

Almost everyone LOVES French fries. And also donuts. And also all kinds of tasty stuff that gets deep-fried before we eat it. In fact, Americans love fried food so much that billions of gallons of cooking oil are used to make it for us every year. See that jug on the right in the photo? That's a gallon; now imagine BILLIONS of those. Every year. After the oil is used, it gets sent to landfills, where it hangs around pretty much forever; or it gets poured down the kitchen sink, where it gunks up the pipes. But here in Brooklyn, some people have got another—much, much better—idea about what to do with leftover cooking oil! In May, City Science Kids will tell you what that is. Meanwhile, tell us what creative, environmentally-friendly thing YOU would do with leftover cooking oil. 

City Science Kids is Ready for Spring!

And to prove it, we've been working on all kinds of episodes. Here are some clues about what's coming up in the months ahead! Guesses, anyone?

Photo 1: Getty Images via CNBS; photo 2: via clipdealer;
photo 3: via Google Images; photo 4: via permacouture

City Science Kids Explains How Salt Melts Ice: A Mini-Episode

Nothing melts ice and snow like warm temperatures—and we'll be having a lot more of those when spring begins on March 21 (less than a week away, now!). But you know what else melts ice and snow? Watch this mini-episode and find out!

For a great visual aid for understanding how this works, visit this site and fiddle with the animation, changing the temperature and adding more or less salt. Happy almost-spring everybody!

It's snowing in Brooklyn!

OK, we're not going to get nearly as much as the photo shows. But today in this space, snow means one thing: that it's almost time for a mini-episode of City Science Kids. Stay tuned!