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His school is full of people and he wants to be the best host. Before the guests take their feet out of the car, their leader sticks out the window, sticks out his thumb and asks how they are and if the ride was pleasant, sincerely hoping to hear the answer. Thomas Arango Chavarro is barely 12 years old and has a small body that does not fit this mature and elegant demeanor. “Welcome to my school. I hope you have the best days,” he says, his voice bouncing. He chews gum out of nervousness, it doesn’t take him long to realize it. “Today is a very important day,” he explains to the strangers.
Among the guests that the Montessori San Francisco public school will host, in the heart of Colombia’s coffee region, will be the Minister of Education Aurora Vergara, who will come to learn about the Cafelab project. Thanks to this initiative, in a few hours they will receive the award for the best educational center in the world in the “Environmental Action” category of the World’s Best School, awarded by the organization T4 Education. But Arango still doesn’t know that. And for him, this is a visit to learn more about the sustainability work they have been doing together with teachers and colleagues since 2017.
Cafelab was founded six years ago with the attempt of teachers Ramón Majé Floriano (mathematics and physics) and Jorge Andrés Lizcano Vargas (natural sciences) to give students skills that are not forgotten “every eight days”. After a field trip, they realized the environmental problems caused by coffee waste and decided to make it the basis of the curriculum. “The first thing we wanted to do was think about strategies to reintegrate them into nature and then give the children the opportunity to delve deeper into the topics they need. Why am I doing a project to talk about uranium contamination when there is nothing real here?” asks Lizcano. “We have to talk to the ministry about this. See how we can transfer what we have achieved to other schools.”
Aurora Vergara, Secretary of Education, interacts with students of the Montessori School at the San Francisco headquarters in Pitalito, Huila, Colombia, on November 3, 2023. Diego Cuevas
This project, developed in three villages in the municipality of Pitalito, Huila, and involving about 200 families, envisaged a change in the curricular structure of the institution. Therefore, it was determined that the formulation and solution of real-world problems should be consolidated as the central axis of the study. A decision that makes sense in a place like Pitalito. Around 21,000 tons are produced here every year; It is one of the municipalities with the largest coffee-growing area in Colombia. “Where the best is,” the children explain. Here the coffee bushes appear in all stages of growth on the roadsides and also mark the beginning and end of this rural school, where 330 students between the ages of 5 and 18 learn. To date, more than 100,000 tons of coffee pomace have been recycled as part of the program.
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Aromatic beverages containing coffee pulp; ecological briquettes with husks as a substitute for firewood; artistic works with the remains or cunchos; electrical energy from pulp and mucilage (the gelatinous layer that covers the seed and gives it sweetness) or organic compost. There are no limits to students’ creativity and they are already thinking about what comes next. Ana Lucía Gutiérrez Morales is clear about this: coffee should be the one that brings electricity to the neighborhoods where there is no electricity.
Thomas, a student at the Montessori school, lights a light bulb using energy from coffee waste. Diego Cuevas
She decided to join the clean energy group because she heard her cousin telling her about what they were doing. “The pulp and mucilage have the ability to generate electrical energy through the oxidation-reduction process. [por la transferencia de electrones tras la descomposición y la acidez que generan]“, she says with concentration. “It’s a very exciting process.”
Thanks to a few containers they carefully hold in their hands, they have so far managed to light 12-watt light bulbs. For days, they preserved a small amount of decomposing pulp and slime in a kind of closed pot, rubbing directly against two plates: one made of zinc and one made of copper. These are responsible for generating electricity. “It was magical learning all that,” says the young woman. The project is now developing a way to combine all the electricity generated into a battery that can be easily transported. “I know a lot of neighbors who don’t have electricity, it would be very nice if we could change that. Even better if it was something the coffee farmers didn’t want and threw away, right?”
“It works because we studied it”
Another major project at the school is composting coffee waste. 40% of fresh fruit, the pulp, is thrown away by farmers, mainly in their fields. But the acidity of these remains has altered the cycles and blackened several crops, as happened to Jaider Andrés Narváez’s grandfather. So he decided to do something to solve the problem: compost.
Jaider Andrés Narváez, a student at the Montessori School, poses in one of the school’s laboratories. Diego Cuevas
The key to their project was to collect these remains along with the cisco used for livestock and carefully study what ratio of this organic material would best make it a great source of nutrients. “It is normal that my grandfather thought that every organic element was good, but that is not entirely the case. On my family’s 80-acre farm, I watched as the remains were piled up in a pit, thrown into the orchards, or floating. “Now we use this compost that I made myself.”
For Professor Lizcano, this curriculum brought countless benefits that went beyond the academic fundamentals. “I remember a few months ago one of the students’ grandparents came up to us and told us that his grandson was very intelligent. And since they founded Cafelab, there’s something to talk about. This cannot be measured in any test, but it has enormous value,” he says enthusiastically.
“And how do you know this works?” asks Vergara, surrounded by cameras and parents who came to the school to get to know the priest up close. Narváez doesn’t even think about it: “This is an excellent duo. The secret is in the mix: 60% dry organic matter and 40% wet pulp. “We know it works because we have researched it.” The minister smiles happily and acknowledges the hard work they have done.
A student and a Montessori school staff member wait in one of the school’s classrooms. Diego Cuevas
“You are the joy and hope of the country. They are an example of what we can do when we put education at the service of environmental solutions,” he said after the award ceremony. In addition to the international recognition, the school will receive $50,000 to make this center’s dream a reality: a stem cell manufacturing biolab that promotes the development of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “We want to completely x-ray the coffee that surrounds us,” says Professor Majé, “to take education to another level.” This is particularly important for a rural school. We are very proud and we still have a lot to do here, in the rural areas.”