The course focuses on the social and environmental impacts of the U.S. demand for biofuels, fossil fuel alternatives derived from living or recently living matter, in developing worlds. Professor Angelina Snodgrass Godoy received a grant for the class to travel abroad and study the topic firsthand.

"Neither of the cases we're looking at are clearly related to the production of biofuels, but they're both industries that have potential to move into biofuels," senior Eli Williams said.

While in Guatemala, the students met with different government ministries as well as indigenous, human-rights and environmental groups in order to discuss different perspectives on the effects of biofuel need.

The group also learned about health and human-rights issues in the local communities that are affected by sugar cane and African palm plantations.

"We got to speak with these people and hear their stories about how they've been negatively affected by these industries," senior Geoffrey Morgan said. "It's difficult to explain how powerful that experience was."

One of the main issues they found with the sugar mill they visited was the effect it had on water sources. A nearby river, which is used for bathing and washing clothes, was visibly black, odorous, and filled with small biting worms, the students said. Many of these conditions were due to improper waste-disposal methods. In the case of the African palm plantations, wetlands were burned in order to create more space, and cyclical flooding occurred that destroyed homes and ruined the harvests of many of the community members.

"We were on the front lines of environmental degradation," said Phil Neff, a graduate student in the class.

They also took issue with the state of labor on the plantations.

"Part of what's so devastating about the sugar cane industry is that it's very labor intensive and very water intensive," said Andrea Dai, a student in the class. "Because of this and the poverty levels in these communities, a lot of the kids are being pulled out of school to go and work in the fields."

Now that the class has returned from the trip, the next order of business is to write a policy proposal, which will be shared with several members of the local community, particularly Rep. Jim McDermott. Ken Faires and Kurt Spies, two engineering doctorate candidates who were asked to take part in the trip, will publish individual papers about the trip in engineering journals. Neff will also publish a paper.

"We're planning on sitting down with an actual government representative and perhaps planting a seed about how biofuel policy in the future could proceed," Williams said.

Along with the policy proposal, the students also plan to write letters to the mayor of the local municipality, asking him to follow through on the promised clean-water project, as well as to the mill owners, informing them of human-rights, labor and chemical issues.

"Our hope is that we can make some sort of impact with these letters, since they're coming from a foreign audience," Williams said.

Members of the class said that they were thankful for the opportunity to learn about these conditions outside the realm of a textbook.

"In a lot of these Task Forces, you spend a whole quarter researching, then make recommendations based on what you learn," senior Sam Lim said. "And I think the biggest thing is that we could spend hours researching at the library here in Seattle, and the profs know tons and tons about these topics, but for us to actually be able to go to Guatemala and talk to people … that's the most powerful thing."

Reach reporter Kristen Steenbeeke at news@dailyuw.com.