Snapshot
Project Title: How do we feed the world?
Learning Innovation Grant Recipient
What is the Future of Farming? After reading informational texts, researching and using information from participation in designed experiences, students will be asked to create a presentation that includes identifying a problem related to farming practices, feeding 9 billion people by 2050, and proposing a solution. Students will share their solutions through a business plan that they will present to potential “investors.” Students will be introduced to a variety of creative approaches in developing effective solutions, including vertical farming, stem cell meat, fish farming, developing perennial crops, rooftop farming, adjusting the food culture, nutrigenomics, and aquaponics. At the end of the students’ business plan presentations, we will select aquaponics as the solution we can implement now. Then, students will be given the task of engineering a blueprint for an aquaponics system. After the initial research and blueprints have been finished, we will work together as a class and build a functioning and producing aquaponics system. After the aquaponics system has produced its first yield, students will collect data on the percent yield vs. cost. With the information the students have gained through this project, they will create a final business model and presentation. The project outcome will be evaluated by the Functionality of the Aquaponics system and business model for that system created by the students. The timeline for the completion of the project will be the 2015-2016 school year.