MooBlue Makes Waves: Upper School Students Speak On Sustainability Podcast

The idea took shape in the Upper School Cascades at Bush’s Shark Tank–style Entrepreneurs’ Boot Camp, where students are challenged to design solutions to real-world problems—combining scientific research, business strategy, and social impact. The Shark Tank Cascade is ideal for pushing students out of their comfort zones while providing them with lifelong, invaluable skills such as public speaking and networking that prepare them for life’s challenges after high school. 

“I would love to be prepared for what I’m actually going to do in the future,” Kai said. “But I also understand the value of letting people creatively express themselves, and a lot of that involves experiential learning — at The Bush School, that’s really highly valued. You’re always trying to solve problems on your own, not relying on someone else to hand you the answer. I think that’s very valuable.”

Their pitch for MooBlue wowed judges during the culminating Shark Tank presentation and quickly gained attention beyond the classroom. The team was invited by influencer Mitch Ratcliffe to share their work on his podcast, Sustainability In Your Ear, highlighting how a Cascades project can extend far beyond campus. As part of this immersive course, Zara, Ellie, and Kai developed MooBlue, a cattle feed additive designed to reduce methane emissions at scale.

What sparked this incredible idea for the bright, young entrepreneurs?

“Our idea, MooBlue, is a cattle feed additive that reduces the amount of methane emissions in the atmosphere,” Ellie shared. “We wanted to do something that mattered — not just to the individual consumer, but on a wider scale, touching the entire chain from farmers to consumers to the Earth.” 

During the research process, the students visited several businesses, such as Nor’east Candles, to learn more about how to grow a business from start to finish. They also reviewed scholarly articles from reputable sources, including ScienceDirect, the National Institutes of Health, and Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, to point them toward a potential solution for their unmet need to reduce atmospheric methane emissions. As a team, they identified their target audiences, potential solutions, and determined the product's purpose. 

“We were passionate about sustainability efforts and also wanted to create a product that could also be profitable,” Kai said. “The two target audiences that we identified were large corporate farms and smaller farms in rural areas. We decided to focus on large corporate farms that have thousands of cattle. If one farm adopts your product, you can immediately reduce emissions at scale, helping reduce methane emissions more quickly. They also have more capital and face increasing pressures from regulators, investors, and food companies to reduce emissions.”

At the center of their idea is a red seaweed called Asparagopsis taxiformis, which contains the compound bromoform that blocks the enzymes used by methane-producing microbes in the rumen, which is the largest of the four stomach compartments in animals such as cows, sheep, and goats. 

“This whole process of microbes breaking down fiber is called enteric fermentation, and this is what creates methane as a waste byproduct of the anaerobic microbes,” Ellie explained. “The cow releases it through burping. Asparagopsis reduces methane because it contains the active compound bromoform. When ingested by the cow, even at just 1% of its diet, bromoform blocks the enzymes the microbe uses to produce methane. And there’s actually some hope that the energy the cow no longer wastes on producing methane could be redirected into feed efficiency, potentially lowering costs and boosting productivity for farmers.”

By utilizing the invasive seaweed Asparagopsis, the MooBlue team discovered cow methane emissions can be reduced by 98%. They then decided that the solution to their unmet need was to harvest Asparagopsis and repurpose it into oil-based feed-additive capsules. 

“Currently, there’s a lack of sustainability in the agricultural industry, especially with the over-farming of ruminant animals, which are a high contributor to methane emission output,” Zara shared. “We hope that people will feel better when they buy methane-reduced meat or dairy products, because they’re helping the environment by contributing minimal methane output to the atmosphere.”

Each student had their own reasons for getting involved in the business-focused Cascade. Zara, a passionate environmentalist, was recently awarded for her short documentary, Seattle Responds to Food Waste, which was selected for theatrical screening at Toi Femmes – Films in dʼEnfants, a Parisian film festival that celebrates young women in filmmaking. Her mother is also an entrepreneur who oversees her own career-consulting and college-counseling business. 

“After creating my short film Seattle Responds to Food Waste,  I wanted to get involved in more projects around environmentalism and sustainability,” Zara said. “We wanted to take a different angle and create something that could really improve our climate and atmosphere.” 

In her Eighth Grade Changemaking project, she had the opportunity to discover different ways to solve the problems within our world and brainstorm solutions through research. 

“My Changemaking project allowed me to see the world from the perspective of a fixer,” Zara said. “One that could help provide or find a way to pursue the greater issues in our world and spread awareness.”

Kai, Zara, and Ellie have all seen the critically acclaimed television series Shark Tank and became highly interested in building a business of their own from start to finish. 

“What drew me to entrepreneurship was the idea that I could help bring awareness to big issues and, hopefully, one day solve the pressing problems with sustainable solutions,” Zara said. “Many ideas are given, but we need some action, and I see entrepreneurship as a good solution.”

By watching other inventors and entrepreneurs pitch their ideas on the show, the students gained insight into how to market their product to investors.

“I personally love watching Shark Tank, and it’s been a pretty big motivator for me to try entrepreneurship,” Kai said. “But I think the core of entrepreneurship is trying to make as many people as happy as possible.”