Vision

Our vision for Canada is to have people eat healthy and buy or produce local food to reduce our food production carbon footprint. Our project was an experiment to see how easy or hard it would be to produce healthy food inside year round. We purchased and started a hydroponic system from SucSeed and started our first crops mid-February. We have been able to conclude that home hydroponic systems are a viable way to produce your own fresh vegetables. We invited guest into our classroom from the local farmer’s co-cop to teach us the nutritional benefits of eating healthy, the difference between processed and fresh food and the carbon footprint of shipping food around the world.

Action

Our action project was to educate others on the benefit and ease of growing your own vegetables year round using a hydroponic system. Through our hands on experience with our hydroponic systems and research we developed a presentation on growing food hydroponically. The six students instrumental in the collection of information presented their knowledge at the “Roots Of Bruce” agricultural show, sharing their learning with 600 grade 5 students from across our school board. They have been invited to return as presenters next year. We also had a chance to educate our board and trustee members of the Bluewater District School Board on the benefits of growing food hydroponically year round. We are in the process of educating classes within our school.

Reflection & Celebration

Our celebrations:
_Many students in our class have convinced their families to invest in hydroponic systems.
_Being youth presenters at the Roots of Bruce agricultural show, first time in the past 25 years of the show’s history.
_Presenting to board and trustee members in our school board.

Reflections:
– This has been a great learning experience for the students. They have taken on leadership roles, taken responsibility for maintenance of the system, researched and trouble shot issues, maintained records of growth and have educated others on the benefit of growing your own food hydroponically.
– There are many connections to the Ontario curriculum in math, language, health, science, etc.
This project will be continuing next year and is expanding as we will be adding at least two large hydroponic grow towers to our project next year.
Our only big issue was being unable to start our growing season until mid-February as we were waiting on funding to purchase equipment.
I would highly recommend this project to other teachers.