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Trash Collection Leads to Innovation in Tech Classroom



Trash Collection Leads to Innovation in Tech Classroom

by Shelly Ferullo

Staff Reporter

Everyone is familiar with the old saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” but if you are a student at East Aurora High School, one person’s trash is often your lesson in engineering.

Brian Cray teaches several courses at the high school in the technology department, including Energy, Graphic Arts, Architecture and Production Systems. Some are electives, which means they run for one semester and are open to all students, while others run for a full year. 

The architecture class is a full-year course and his students are building two dog houses that will either be sold or donated with some materials that Cray had from his barn or that he picked up curbside while commuting to work. 

Students at the Architecture class at East Aurora high school stand next to a dog house they are building.

“They are incredibly well built, heaviest dog houses ever,” Cray said. “I’m unsure about the asking price. Most of the materials I had laying around, and I did garbage pick some siding.”

High School teacher Brian Cray garbage picked some of the siding for this dog house that his students are building.

And that’s just the beginning. Cray has been combing the curb for classroom materials all year. During the first semester, Cray taught a course called Energy. In this elective, the students learned about what makes diesel engines work, they took apart a carburetor, replaced bearings, and worked on a clutch for a riding lawnmower. They sharpened blades for lawn mowers by hand and performed a variety of tune-ups on small engines. 

The students also had their own small engine to work on from home when the district had to pivot to remote learning in November because of rising coronavirus cases, and Cray garbage picked every single one on his drive to and from school.

“I was taking different routes to work depending on what the garbage days were for the towns I was driving through. Clarence is always a solid bet for garbage picking,” Cray said. “I was strategically driving the route to collect as many lawnmowers, snowblowers, anything that had a small engine on it, to throw in the back of my truck. I collected enough for each student to have one.”

East Aurora High School teacher Brian Cray collects lawn mowers that were left by the curb for his students to work on and diagnose.

Cray then masked up and dropped one off to each of his students, while holding his breath. It’s not every day that a high school teacher drops off outdoor equipment on the front porch that might be beyond repair.

“I was a little worried that my parents’ reaction would not be great, you know, by dropping off a garbage-picked item at their beautiful, East Aurora home, but I was 100 percent wrong,” Cray said. “They thought that the entire idea was great.”

When the district moved to remote learning, Cray began meeting with his students virtually for the first time. Students in East Aurora are currently meeting for their core classes, like English, Math, Science and Social Studies, on a hybrid schedule. This means that these classes meet in person twice a week and online twice a week. However, electives are only meeting in person on the hybrid schedule. When the district was fully remote, he was suddenly teaching them behind a screen.

“It’s virtually impossible to teach a hands-on class while looking through a computer,” Cray said. “Students are taking my course because they are hands-on learners. They want to get grease under their nails and they enjoy getting dirty. I didn’t want to take that away from them. I wanted to give them an opportunity to learn that they would have had at school.” 

Chad Egloff stands with the small engine lawn mower that was delivered by his high school teacher Brian Cray.

Cray began meeting with his students virtually. He would work on an engine either in his barn at home or in his classroom, while students were working at home. Each engine had a different diagnostic problem, and over the next few weeks, some students were able to troubleshoot and figure out the issue. Some could not get diagnosed, but they were all together anyway, trying to figure it out. 

“It was crazy, but it worked. It was a lot of fun,” Cray said. “Everyone was working on something different. Each engine had a different diagnostic problem. Some rougher than others. The lesson learned here was that the students don’t have to rely on each other for the answers.”

This is Cray’s second year teaching in the district, but he has been teaching for nine years. He said he was drawn to East Aurora after the recent investment in the technology program through the East Aurora Education Foundation, the East Aurora Rotary Club and local business A. W. Miller Technical Sales, Inc. He said that next year the Energy course will be renamed, appropriately and simply, Engines.

Cray hopes to one day expand the course and be able to offer it for a full year. The first semester would operate much like the course does now, with students learning the ins and out of diagnosing and repairing small engines, but the second half would operate as a clinic and it would be open to the community, similar to the dog grooming program at the Wallace D. Ormsby Center on Center Street. If someone has a lawnmower or chainsaw that doesn’t work, they can drop it off for the students to look at. 

This past fall, students diagnosed a self-propelled lawnmower for a teacher at the high school. They figured out that the mower blade was bent, and when they took it apart, they discovered that the timing key under the flywheel was broken. If and when the course becomes full-time, they can do more work like this.

“Students could estimate the parts cost and turnaround time. Then they can also learn customer interaction, how to write a bill, skills outside of the diagnostics,” Cray said. “That would be the ultimate course.” 

The course is not in session right now, but there is still evidence of it in the classroom. There are lawnmowers and snow blowers in the space waiting for next year. Cray said that he plans on bringing some of them home to store in his barn, but if he sees one roadside on his way to school, it will probably end up in the classroom.

“Maybe in future years, the architecture class can design a shed for the overflow of our materials. Until then, I will flood the place with engines,” Cray said. “We will be tripping over stuff. I will stockpile it.” 

Some of the students, like Gavin Robson, choose a snowblower to tinker with for their elective.

To donate a small engine to the course, or to inquire about one of the doghouses, email Cray at bcray@EAK12.org.

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