What do you get when you unite a system that grows plants in water with a fish tank? You get a sustainable way to produce food.
The Aquaponic Source, a company based out of Longmont, hopes to increase the number of aquaponic systems being used in classrooms across that nation with their new Grants for Plants Foundation, but some Boulder County students are already reaping the benefits.
In an aquaponic system, everything moves in a cycle: fish produce waste that is processed into fertilizer by bacteria and worms, plants take up the water and nutrients and then the water is filtered and sent back down to the fish tank. An aquaponic system uses 90 percent less water than a traditional soil garden and requires no chemicals, as do hydroponic systems.
Sylvia Bernstein, one of the owners of The Aquaponic Source, says one of the bigger advantages of having an aquaponics system over a traditional soil garden is that it can be used to teach yearround. Soil gardens are exposed to harsh, erratic weather conditions and don’t really start producing results until it’s time for the students to leave for summer break. With an aquaponics system, the plants are able to go through their whole growth cycle, and since the root systems are exposed, students see how each part of the system connects to make a complete ecosystem, says Bernstein.
“A lot of teachers are finding out about [aquaponic systems] and wanting to bring it to their schools because it’s such a great teaching tool, especially for teaching about healthy, sustainable food sources,” says Samson Brock, Grants for Plants Foundation manager for The Aquaponic Source. “So, it’s our mission to spread this popularity and help the teachers as much as we can by providing funding and resources.”
Bernstein says The Aquaponic Source decided to develop the Grants for Plants Foundation because their interaction with schools, like with their neighbors at Flagstaff Academy, already made up a big portion of their business. They found out from these school relationships that one of the biggest challenges for teachers is finding the necessary funds to implement the system.
According to Allison Cole, the greenhouse keeper for Flagstaff Academy, it cost around $3,000 to purchase their aquaponic system. A grant from the Colorado Garden Foundation covered the cost of the system, but the school had to cover the cost of the fish and plants. Heather Riffel of Arapahoe Ridge High School, who used The Aquaponic Source for some of the equipment she needed to build their system, had to go through the tedious process of applying for several grants, some of which were federal, and one being an educational grant from the Boulder Valley School District, in order to cover costs. One of the purposes of the Grants for Plants Foundation is to simplify this process by not only providing free systems for classrooms, but also by assisting teachers with finding other grants to cover any remaining costs, says Brock.
Another important aspect of the Grants for Plants Foundation will be creating an online forum where students and teachers can share their experiences and lessons and ask questions.
“It will really help accelerate the learning curve because they will have the ability to talk to other teachers and students that may have dealt with similar issues,” says Bernstein.
It will be a few months until the forum is established since the Grants for Plants Foundation is still in its startup stage. Brock is currently working on raising funds to cover startup costs and completing all the federal filing necessary to establish the foundation as a nonprofit. He’s already found a few ways to cover some of the costs, such as putting a portion of the profits from their annual Aquaponic Fest, which took place this year on Aug. 9 and 10, toward the foundation.
One of the speakers at the Aquaponic Fest, Mark Manteuffel, a professer from St. Louis Community College in Missouri, shared how an aquaponic system provides a more beneficial learning experience for students because it requires hands-on interaction. According to Manteuffel, such “active learning” helps students to retain 90 percent of what they are studying as opposed to the average 10 percent studies show students get from reading, 20 percent from hearing or 30 percent from viewing.
“It’s a wonderful gateway for teachers to introduce into their curriculum in terms of science and chemistry because it’s so hands-on for the students,” Riffel says.
Manteuffel also addressed how well the aquaponics system lends itself to so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education. According to the U.S. Economic and Statistics Administration, STEM employment will rise 7 percent higher than non-STEM employment by 2018.
With an aquaponics system students learn to keep accurate records, measure temperature, water quality and PH and learn about the nitrogen cycle. Riffel says that the system also opens the door for the discussion of food production and its association with social development, as well as social and scientific responsibility.
“It allows us to bring up water rights, which is such an issue in Colorado,” says Bernstein. “The fact that all the water in an aquaponics system gets reused makes it a very water wise way to grow, which will help kids start thinking about things like, how are crops watered and what is the most ecological way to do that?”
Bernstein already worked closely with the Colorado MESA program for a year to develop a curriculum for teaching aquaponics that would fulfill classroom science requirements. Several schools already use her book, Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together, as a textbook. She hopes to expand this kind of curriculum and informational support and make it more available with the start of the foundation, which she hopes to be up and running by November.
“There is quite a learning curve to figuring out the water chemistry,” says Cole. “I think education information support will be important, and I’m really glad that The Aquaponic Source is willing to provide that because it’s really a lot of information to process and understand.”
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