Breakthrough for Project SEED

“These two objects are the same size and the same weight,” physics teacher Kirk Davis tells his AP physics class. “With that information, which do you think travels faster?”

He holds up two cylinders, one hollow and made of metal and the other filled and made of plastic, and rolls them under his new 16 PASCO Photogates, which monitor the motion of objects passing through their gates with infrared light.

“Clearly, the plastic cylinder travels faster,” Davis said. “You can think of it as ice skating. Skaters move [faster] when they keep their arms together, which is why the filled object traveled faster.”

Thanks to a $1,200 grant from the Project SEED Foundation (Student Entrepreneurs for Educational Development), Davis has been able to buy the photogates for his AP Physics class. The new equipment allows for his students to engage in rotational dynamics experiments, something students could not engage in before.

The Project SEED Foundation is a student-run business that brings in funds for the school from Salinas Tallow, an eco-friendly recycling company that buys used cooking oil from restaurants. SEED the money to school clubs, organizations and teachers, many of whom must pay for extra supplies and projects out of their pockets.

According to Nikhil Goel, president of SEED, Salinas has a contact who sends checks every month to the school based on how much used cooking oil Salinas collects from the restaurants with the program. In exchange, SEED puts Salinas in contact with local restaurants.

Davis is thrilled with the support that he received from the foundation, as he wouldn’t have had sufficient department funds to purchase the equipment otherwise.

“There are these huge concepts that are not easy to learn that we can now just show kids because of Project SEED,” Davis said. “This equipment was very costly, so to get something like that is fantastic.”

Recently, SEED not only granted Davis with $1,200 for new equipment but also with $100 for Physics Olympiad registration.

“All students would have had to pay money to participate in the Olympiad,” Davis said. “And generally I used to pay for kids and collect. Since nobody would ever pay me back, [the money] ended coming out of my pocket.”

Goel recommends Project SEED to any teachers on campus, telling them to “take advantage of its speedy grant system.”

Davis also urged  other teachers to explore the opportunities that Project SEED presents to the faculty.

“I would just encourage all the teachers that when someone gives you a grant opportunity in the beginning of the year, think about what you might need in the room,” Davis said. “This is going to benefit 120 kids next year, the year after that and every year following, which is a huge accomplishment.”