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I was wondering if anyone else has used hydroponics in their classroom? I wrote a couple of small grants a few years ago so I could install a system in my classroom storage closet after the kids started complaining about the food in the cafeteria. (See a need, fill a need.) The project "grew" quite literally. We began by donating the food we grew to the cafeteria (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, arugula, etc). One group then had the idea of using hydroponics to beautify the school so next came the flowers and vines. Social studies teachers and math teachers instantly seized the many curriculum ties they found and even the fine arts teachers got involved. Stressed out teachers often visited our closets so they could benefit from the full spectrum lights - among some teachers it was known as the Vitamin D closet. :) In my own classroom, every aspect of the project provided an opportunity to investigate another area of science. Chemistry (nutrient solutions), agriculture (growing degree days), ecosystems (loved it when all the systems grew algae), engineering (students also designed their own tanks in addition to the commercial ones we bought), even the gnat problem we developed was an opportunity to solve problems. If you have used a hydroponics system in your own classroom, what other curriculum ties did you discover? If not, are you interested in learning more about the project? What kinds of tools would you need to make this happen in your classroom? Kendra

I would love to have hydroponics in my classroom. Do you know where I would be able to get the equipments and supplies that I would need to do this? I teach in about 6 different rooms so I would like one in each classroom, if possible. Please let me know either. I remember doing this activity when I was in the 7th grade and it was an exciting experience for me and I am sure that my students will love it as well. Sherene A. McDonald

Hi Sherene!

I love this project so much! I'm listing a website below that I used to get started. The nice thing about hydroponics is that you can get started with nothing more than a 2-liter bottle, some gauze, and a few seeds. If the project is successful you can always get more sophisticated later on.

Feel free to ask any questions along the way and please let me know how the project is going. The website I'm listing also lists grant opportunities as well.

Happy gardening!
Kendra

Kids Gardening

Aloha, Kendra, If you go to any plant or garden shops they would have equipment for prepping for Hydroponics and they even have the formula for you to use for fertilizer. It is quite convenient and cost around $20.00 Mahalo and aloha, Kumu Serena

Awesome idea. Another approach might be as simple as Jiffy pellets, which can be expanded and the seeds planted on the top of the medium. I haven't bought any trays for years, because I keep reusing mine, but there are specially-designed trays to hold the pellets separate. After the plant has a healthy start in the peat (which contains very few nutrients - just enough to get started) they could continue to grow in the test environments. Just a thought.

Love the idea of hydroponics in the classroom. Wish there is enough space. Great opportunity to allow kids to grow vegetables and also learn about it!

Thanks for the great idea of using Jiffy pellets... I love the Kids Gardening website, thanks for the reminder. Thanks Liz

Hello Educational Gardeners! There is time to sign on for this great webinar: Designing, Creating, and Teaching in Schoolyard Gardens One way to help reconnect today's children to the outdoors is through gardening. Schoolyard gardens are places where students not only learn about wildlife species and ecosystems, but also become outdoor classrooms where they hone their academic skills and nurture their innate curiosity and creativity. This web seminar is being offered as part of PollinatorLIVE: A Distance Learning Adventure. While pollinators may come in small sizes, they play a large and often undervalued role in the production of the food we eat, the health of flowering plants, and the future of wildlife. Gardening provides habitat for pollinators, but it also serves as a means of providing students with lessons and experiences that meet science standards. Register Today! I'll look forward to seeing you in the audience. Patty

Hey Patty, I am hoping we have a snow day that day! So I can attend the seminar, if not I will need to check it out when it hits the archives. Thanks for letting the group know about the Seminar. Liz

Hi Liz, Let's remember to post the archive info on this thread. I am free to attend so I hope to share the archived material with those who can not attend. We are wishing for blue skies here --it's the ice and sleet that bring down trees and wires that are fearsome. Have a good day. ~ patty

I'm not sure if this is the best thread but you folks are interested in gardening and education so I thought that I would share the pdf of tonight's webinar on polinators and gardeners --the focus was on how to establish a schoolyard garden and one of the initial resource sites for Polinator Live has great resources. I know that we will browse and I just wanted to share. Patty

Attachments

Polinator_Live_webinar.pdf (3.58 Mb)

Hi Sherene and other posters,
Sherene you asked,'I would love to have hydroponics in my classroom. Do you know where I would be able to get the equipments and supplies that I would need to do this?'
I would like to also thank others for reminding us about the National Gardening Association's website for kids. Check out this specific page at Kidsgarden about Hydroponics.
Also, NASA has an activity that shows diagrams of several different hydroponics systems, including one using inexpensive PVC pipes.
Please let us know when you come up with a way to create your own hydroponics system for a classroom.

Did you notice that the National Garden association awards grants for hydroponics in the classroom? You can find the link on the left side of the homepage previous posted by Carolyn

Did you notice that the National Garden association awards grants for hydroponics in the classroom? You can find the link on the left side of the homepage previous posted by Carolyn

Free Conservation Biology book "When the last living thing has died on account of us, how poetical it would be, if Earth could say, in a voice floating, perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon 'It is done...People did not like it here.'" -Kurt Vonnegut > Dear all, > > Apparently in support of this year being the International Year for > Biodiversity, Oxford University Press is making a Conservation Biology > textbook freely available. > > Please pass this email on to as many schools, wildlife clubs and > others as you can and/or print it and give it!! > > PS-Please post and disseminate to other networks and colleagues!! > > Download the 350 pp book free at: > http://www.mongabay.com/conservation-biology-for-all.html > > Sodhi, N. S. and P. R. Ehrlich (Eds.) Conservation Biology for All. > Oxford University Press (2010)

I had planned on creating a hydroponics system, but because another teacher did not want her tilapias anymore, I took them. Now, I plan to create an aquaponics system. I came across a website called Aquapono. The set up on this site looks like something I could do with the help of my fifth grade students.

There is a nonprofit venture that produces food locally and uses an elaborate hydroponics system. They are producing tilapia for food under their greenhouses. Truly spectacular operation, and they partner with a number of local schools. You might want to take a look at their website: http://www.growingpower.org/

What great resources for hydroponics in the classroom. Living on the island of Hawaii I see this as a great opportunity for students to discover the power of growing their own food. I appreciate the websites and the guidance on building a simple and fun hydroponics container. Thanks I was thinking it would be more complicated - but this sounds very doable. I would like my own vitamin D closet though! :0)

At our school we have science fair which is the 9th grade student projects in the 4th quarter. It's pretty interesting because students get to showcase their own talents. Two of the projects that were done were on hydroponics. I found this website, http://grodan101plus.com/sw57959.php, to be helpful when trying to give background info to the students who were interested in doing hydroponics for their science fair projects.

My environmental science class is in the process of setting up and aquaponics system behind my classroom. I have acquire a 300 gallon cattle trough for the fish and will be using plastic 55 gallon drums (cut in half) with cinders for the plants. My students will be designing and building the system, they are really excited about this. I see it as a center piece of my curriculum, with concepts of sustainability, recycling, biogeochemical cycles, population growth, organic farming, chemistry and alternative energy being derived from it. My ultimate goal is to have the system hooked up to PV panels with batteries so it can operate off the grid. I anticipate problems but this is the kind of real world problem solving our kids should be getting involved in. Not too mention the students get to eat the "fruits" of their labor, ad at the high school level these kids never stop eating. I was really surprised at how many of my students have never grown their own food or even had fish as pets. I know we were looking at talapia as the fish because they are easy to grow, and eat practically anything. Students will need to find a local food source for the fish, I hope they figure out a way to grow food for the fish too. It is going to be fun and a great learning experience for the students and me.

My husband teaches agriculture at a high school on Oahu. He has been doing hydroponics for a long time and loves how quickly plants grow. He grows lettuce and sells them to the faculty and staff. This year he also started aquaponics. Aqua-ponics includes hydroponics and incorporates aquaculture. His aquaponics basically uses fish to produce fertilizer for the plants. The water goes through a non-stop cycle from the fish pond to the plants and back to the fish. One downfall for his aquaponics is that the plants don't grow as fast as the plants in his hydroponics. I love hydroponics and how there is no dirt in/on my vegetables and how crisp the vegetables are.

For tilapia feed, I was thinking/researching upon feeding the tilapias duckweed and worms. I have duckweed in my home pond and my guppies eat these. And I had done a worm project with my students last year so now I have lots of worms to feed. Right now, I'm stuck on finding cheap lighting for plant growth inside my classroom or setting a secure area outside where it can't be vandalized. I have everything else ready to construct an aquaponics system with my students.

Wow, I didn't even think about hydroponics. What a great idea! All I need to do is to think where in my room I could possibly have a small one. I think it would be great for me to get parents and students involved in digging a small area outside my class and have a hydoponics in my room so we could compare the 2. I'll check out stores that were mentioned and see if it will be possible to do. Too bad, we don't have more hours to get stuff done! I am glad that I found this discussion board: it is always interesting reading and at times remind me what I did in the past and should start up again. The website kidsgardening.org has good ideas to follow. Hopefulling, I can get an outside garden going and strive for a small one inside.

Hydroponics sounds like a great opportunity for students to get hands on experience in many differernt subject areas like biology (the growth of the plant) and chemistry (the nutirents in the solution). I once saw a system where lettuce was grown in somthing I thought looked like soda cans. Does anyone have any information on this?

I have a grow cart in my classroom that I'm trying to integrate into my life science curriculum for middle schoolers. Has any one effectively been able to use gardening and still show significant growth in data?

What a great project! I struggle with finding grants and then writing a successful grant proposal. Does anybody have any specific grants that they found for hydroponic projects or tips for writing them? My other question is what do you do with the produce? Is the kitchen at the school able to use the produce that is grown? Has anybody successfully implemented a garden to kitchen program within their school?

I love the idea of using hydroponics in my classroom. I just recently set up a very primitive worm compost bin and now my students and I are looking for more fun and ongoing projects. The hydroponics would give my students an opportunity to problem solve when setting up the system. I think I will have them explore the kid's gardening website provided and write down their findings so they can feel some ownership in this endeavor. I know my students will want to feed leaves from the plants we grow to our worms, as well as any fruits or vegetables. This will tie in nicely with teaching about healthy eating as well. I love the idea that my students will get to see another way that plants grow. Right now they are observing the plant growing in the soil of our worm habitat, so it will be useful for them to see plants growing in another medium.

We are actually thinking of starting hydroponics in my school, we already started the aquaponics(aquaculture + hydroponics) in the school lounge. Does anyone have any ideas or knowledge about a good aquaponics curriculum?

Kathryn asked, [i]"Does anybody have any specific grants that they found for hydroponic projects or tips for writing them? My other question is what do you do with the produce? Is the kitchen at the school able to use the produce that is grown? Has anybody successfully implemented a garden to kitchen program within their school?"[/i] Kathryn, I used http://www.kidsgardening.org/ '' target="_blank"> http://www.kidsgardening.org/ ' target="_blank"> http://www.kidsgardening.org/ as my main resource when I was developing my program. Be very specific when writing your grant proposals. Fiction writers have a mantra, "SHOW DON'T TELL" - and it's very applicable to grant writing. Don't tell them how you're going to use the money - show them how the kids will use the materials purchased with the funds. Your grant proposal should read like a story that reveals what a day in your classroom with the materials looks like, sounds like, smells like, etc. Put the grant reader in your classroom and you'll win the grant almost every time. Of course you have to mention what materials you're buying, but always make kids the focus. Otherwise it just sounds like you want new "stuff" - and you do - but make them see your kids they way you do. We did partner with our cafeteria manager. But I would advise checking with them before you begin to see if there are any guidelines you need to follow. For example, I had to certify that we did not use any pesticides on our produce before it could be used. Also, because we weren't an "approved grower" we couldn't "sell" our produce but we did offer it free to students. We developed our own logo and it was always posted by the food we donated to the cafeteria - kids knew they could take as much as they wanted for free - and other times we had students walking around serving other students while they ate. It was really an amazing program. Good luck! Kendra