High-school wins big at world’s biggest science fair – A Garden Grows in the Food Desert
Benjamin Mays High School Enterprise: Growing kale in a tote.
Their exhibit, titled “Alternative Methods of Optimizing Food Production in ‘Red-Lined’ and Urban Food Deserts Using Aquaponics and Hydroponics vs. Conventional Growing Methods,”
By Marcia Goodrich
Michigan Tech News
June 15, 2011
Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public research university developing new technologies and preparing students to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world.
Excerpt:
In the Atlanta neighborhood surrounding Benjamin Mays High School, it’s easier to get kidney dialysis than buy a peach.
The nearest bona fide grocery store is miles away. Obesity is epidemic, and school kids breakfast on junk food and soda pop.
Nevertheless, when teacher Geri Nix and her students at Benjamin Mays were casting about for a Michigan Tech High School Enterprise project, growing healthy food did not immediately spring to mind. Neither did competing in the world’s biggest science fair. Nix wasn’t even a science teacher: she taught technology classes and had an interest in art and architecture. “We thought of making art out of junk and selling it,” she recalls. “But that didn’t have much science.”
Then the team stumbled upon the concept of skyscraper farming: converting entire buildings to agriculture.
“We considered the neighborhood where our school is located,” Nix says. “We have little access to fresh foods and vegetables. And we thought about not having outdoor space; many people live in apartments.”
That’s when they decided to build a farm of their own, inside the high school, in a classroom that was serendipitously surrounded by windows on three sides. (That turned out to be a very good thing, Nix says. “Grow lights are expensive.”)
1 comment
Thanks for sharing this article about a fabulous project with such great outcomes for the students lucky enough to have this open minded and interested teacher. Sounds like she had to go almost as far out of her knowledge/comfort zone as did her students – with great results not only for them but future students since apparently it’s become a new addition to their science curriculum.
It would be wonderful if the students – or perhaps the school as a whole – does in fact take the project further and create a not-for-profit enterprise for their community!
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