The plumes of smoke that rose from East Campus one sunny May day could easily have been mistaken for a barbecue taking place in the courtyard. And indeed, burgers were on the grill. But the smoke was coming from a much rarer sight on MIT’s campus — or, in fact, anywhere outside West Africa: a mud-and-straw furnace for smelting iron. For two months, students in class 3.094 (Materials in Human Experience) had been building the furnace, or bloomery, in the traditional style of the Mossi people of Burkina Faso. The…
