Vision

Did you know that malnutrition contributes to 110, 000 deaths during childbirth each year? Did you know that malnutrition is the single largest contributor to disease and continues to account for about half of the deaths of children under five each year? We as a club wanted to take the lead by pledging to increase our awareness and understanding of the malnutrition injustice to help eliminate maternal and child malnutrition. When we invest in nutrition for girls, adolescents, and women, everyone wins.

Despite the fact that vulnerable women are at greater risk of malnutrition than men and more girls die of malnutrition than boys, the world has made little measurable progress in addressing the specific nutritional needs of women, adolescents, and girls living in developing countries. That’s why the aquaponics tank was a great key to connecting both environmental and nutritional injustices. It was a key to global health understanding and an opportunity to raise the profile of malnutrition as a central determinant of maternal and adolescent health, all while learning about the environment.

Action

Growing pretty herb gardens inside our school was not only trendy and healthy, but a great way to start putting fresh organically-grown ingredients into the diet of our peers.Furthermore, through this project we were able to carry on our teaching on the injustices that many people face around the globe surrounding malnutrition and environment. There are lots of ways to grow herbs, inside or outside, but none that are quite as cool as on an Aquaponics tank.

The Aquaponics tank we custom built combines two traditional items into one: a fish tank and a garden. You can grow basil, mint, parsley, spinach, baby greens or other great foods right on top of a fish tank. Using the science of aquaponics we transformed our fish’s waste into nutrients for the plants, then, the plants clean the fish’s water. Everybody is happy! No soil or fertilizer is needed.