Melissa Lovely

After reading informational texts, researching, and using information from participation in designed experiences, I will be asking students to create a presentation in which they identify a problem related to farming practices and feeding 9 billion people by 2050 and propose a solution. Students will propose their solutions through a business plan they will present to “investors”. Students will be introduced to a variety of creative approaches to 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 student business plan presentations, we will select aquaponics as the solution we can implement now. 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 as a class work together and build a functioning and producing aquaponics system. After the aquaponics system has produced its first yield, students will collect data on percent yield vs. cost. With the information the students have gained through this project, they will create a final business model and presentation. My project outcome will be evaluated by Functionality of the Aquaponics system and business model for that system created by the students. Timeline for the completion of the project will be the 2015-2016 school year.