Two 7th grade students, Luca Dutton and Wyatt Bowen, had a brilliant idea to design a microcourse to make soap for the less fortunate. There were two sessions for this microcourse. The first session took place Feb 27 and March 6th, and the second session took place March 13 and 18th. Both sessions were held in the Student Idea Center in Sullivan Hall. 

When asked why he and Luca came up with the idea for Project Bubbles, Wyatt responded that they came up with the idea in the Design Thinking microcourse. “Luca pointed out that hygiene was a big problem, and we developed the idea from there.” When the two were asked what ingredients were used to make the soap, they both explained that they used lye, shea butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and palm oil. Luca noted that they originally were planning to get the ingredients from Africa because that’s where most of the natural ingredients were found to make soap. He added, “But we realized that it was not feasible. So we scaled it down and realized Malvern students could make soap and help local people.”

Next they were asked about how this project will help other people. They both talked about how this will help people with personal hygiene. “Even subconsciously, many people feel and act differently around people who look dirty. This microcourse will help people that are unemployed get jobs and a steady income.” says Wyatt. “Project Bubbles will help people’s hygiene because it will allow them to wash their hands and faces [with the soap]” Luca added. 

“We started out thinking about making a soap hut that could be installed in villages, possibly in South America. That was a little too ambitious though so we cut the idea down to a microcourse,” Wyatt added. “We also learned that an upper school teacher Mrs. Coia makes soap so we asked her if she would like to help us and she has done so much for us” said Luca.

Project Bubbles was an excellent microcourse that many students enjoyed. The work done through this course has already helped many people in our area.