AP across the U.S. : 3 questions

[Aaron]

Q 1) Are you following a curriculum?

 

Q 2) How is it funded?

 

Q 3) Are you strictly educating "in house" or are you educating the local community as well?

 

To get the ball rolling I will answer my own 3 questions.

1) We have no curriculum as of yet but are curious about NY sun works curriculum as well as a local school doing AP nearby.  If it isn't tailored to our set up we (meaning I) will just write a new one.

 

2)  We are funded by the state (public school) but may have to do some fund raising/donations for some of the beds, tanks, pumps, etc.  As of yet we have no grants awarded us.  :(

 

3)  We look forward to a completed facility by Oct 1st. This building will incorporate current students doing the growing / maintenance / and educating of younger students.  This would be tightly controlled by the high school science department.  However, we would like to have community inclusion in the process as well.  

[Troy Mayfield]

1.  I don't have a curriculum, but I do have a large file of powerpoint slides from Colorado Aquaponics.  I'm also gleaning all of the information I can find.

2.  So far, all of my aquaponics systems have been funding by a couple of grants from donorschoose.org as well as a small bit of program budget funding.  My advisory committee has gathered up the funding I need to set up a greenhouse based system. We are setting up a fund with the three local banks that will allow my students to borrow the money needed to purchase fish, feed, testing supplies, etc., and then have the ability to pay back the loan and pay a rental for the the use of the system.  Likely we will approach it from a share-crop style of arrangement - the student bears the cost of production and pay the equivalent of 1/4-1/3 of of the "crop" to my program to cover the cost of equipment, maintenance, etc.  All vegetative production will be sold through the school lunch program unless the student makes other arrangments for sale of the vegetables.  Right now, we do not have a market for fish.

3.  My primary aim will be educating students in my agriculture classes, but, I have a good relationship with the Cooperative Extension horticulture agent and we already participate with a community garden, so I can see us developing some "outreach".

[Kate Mink]

Where: Island School (private) Kauai, HI
1) We have one course, Green Technology, of which working in our Aquaponic Garden is a part. It also includes classwork and research on sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, housing and transportation. Students are all years of high school.

2) Most of our startup funding came from 2 big local grants (total of $20,000) Since then it's from the school's science budget. We're finally starting to supply lettuce to the cafeteria, so there's some payback.

3) I educate alot of local drop-ins and will be having workshops starting this summer. Focus is backyard aquaponics, not commercial.

-Kate

[Liz Ambra]

Our school is located in Santa Clara County, California.

We are in the process of developing a plan.  We've just finished our research and are moving into the feasibility stage.  Since the vision is to teach a variety of students and utilize some of the produce in our school's cafeteria... we need buy in.  Still a work in progress!  We can always start small with a community class to begin with but we would rather not.

Q 1) Are you following a curriculum?

Since I am from  an Adult School within a 5 high school  district.. with an Ed Option ( Community School) component we plan of developing our own curriculum for the various stakeholders.  Our idea is to use AP during the day for our pre-school families, ROP, & ed option students and in the evenings for our CTE  and community adult school learners. 

Q 2) How is it funded?

We will use block grant funding as well as donations, class fees, and grants.

 

Q 3) Are you strictly educating "in house" or are you educating the local community as well?

Our local community will be able to attend our classes for a very small fee.  The focus will be on home based aquaponics.

[Gary Lanning]

Our school is a private high school in Grand Rapids, MI

1) We don't follow a set curriculum. Our aquaponics system is used exclusively by the Advanced Biology class as a year-long research project.

2) Our funding comes from our science budget and donated items. We have received lots of quality free stuff (grow lights, plant cloners, carbon dioxide tanks, aerators,etc.) from the local drug enforcement squad after they confiscated them. 

3) At this point we are strictly in house. 

[Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr.]

Greetings. Good questions:

1. I am currently working with three programs where we are writing the curriculums. a. The Valley View Orchard Community Learning Center (South) Phx Az. b. The Gila Crossing Elementary School on the Gila River Indian Community. c. The Roosevelt School District (South) Phx Az. 

2. Valley view is funded by donation. Gila Crossing by the school. The Roosevelt has ground floor funding by the school district and is preparing to go into fundraising mode.

3. Valley View: Community. Gila Crossing: Mostly in house with expansion to community planned. Roosevelt: When complete in Spring 2014, community.

Valley View: Children harvesting, recording production rates as part of the project based S.T.E.M. education program.

Gila Crossing: Teacher, garden and greenhouse manager Ed Mendoza observes tomatoes in the Gila Crossing AP system.

The S.T.E.M. learning aquaponcs greenhouse under construction at the G. Benjamin Brooks, Sr. Community School part of the Roosevelt School District in (South) Phoenix Az. (Photo taken 8-09-2013)