By Emma Swinney, Public and Media Relations Coordinator, JCCC
A Johnson County Community College (JCCC) student organization, the Chlorella Cavaliers, was recently named as one of fifteen finalist teams in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) AlgaePrize competition.
The AlgaePrize competition is sponsored by the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office and supported by the Algae Foundation and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The competition challenges high school, community college, college, university, and graduate school students from across the United States to research and develop novel technologies in the commercial algae sector.
Researching the power of algae
This competition empowers students across the United States to highlight the resource potential of algae. Algae is a relatively unexplored potential resource for developing biofuels and bioproducts. Algae can fuel our vehicles, recycle carbon dioxide, provide nutritious food for humans and animals, and create thousands of jobs nationwide. DOE and experts believe products made from algae are a natural solution to the energy, food, economic, and climate challenges facing our world today, as algae only need the sun and water to survive and thrive and it can grow in saline, brackish, and wastewater.
JCCC’s Chlorella Cavaliers
The Chlorella Cavaliers are led by JCCC Professor of Biology, Heather Seitz, Ph. D. Seitz teaches courses in microbiology, biotechnology, and molecular biology. In the Fall of 2023, Seitz invited students from her classes to research and develop a novel strain of Chlorella algae.
Seitz and the students are working to introduce a plastic-degrading enzyme to Chlorella to enable it to improve water quality in ecosystems. They picked Chlorella specifically because it is a high-protein, fast-growing, and non-biohazardous strain of algae. It is also how they chose their team name.
Over the summer break, these students have come to campus twice a week to grow and test Chlorella samples for their project research. in September and December, the team must submit written updates on their research to the competition organizers. The Chlorella Cavaliers is an extracurricular activity; it’s in addition to the students’ standard classwork. Students do not receive course credit for participation in the project, but they do gain valuable research experience and public presentation skills that will benefit them as they compete for jobs or pursue further education.
Unique among finalists
JCCC is one of three community college teams that made the list of 15 finalizes. These JCCC students are competing against teams from across the country, which includes teams from private high schools and big research schools like the University of Texas at Austin, the Colorado School of Mines, and more. A complete list of finalists and project abstracts can be found on this DOE webpage.
Since AlgaePrize is a two-year research project, community colleges are at a disadvantage compared to four-year schools It’s difficult to keep a team together for a two-year project when so many community college programs are designed to take two years or less to complete. When the Chlorella Cavaliers first submitted their project proposal in December 2023, there were four students on the team, and one transferred to a four-year college for fall 2024. Seitz was able to recruit four more students to join last spring.
What comes next?
The Chlorella Cavaliers will submit their final research project — a 25-page paper, video, and various visual presentations — in March 2025. In April 2025, the students will travel to the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, to present and answer questions about their findings. A panel of expert judges will select the top five finalist teams, which will participate in another presentation round that weekend.
The winning team will be selected after the second round and will receive a $25,000 grand prize. The top five finalist teams will receive a $10,000 prize. The top fifteen finalist teams receive an $8,000 award for research and $2,000 to cover travel to Golden, CO.
Learn more
Interested in following the Chlorella Cavaliers to the finals? The team posts monthly research updates to their Facebook page.
