STEAM

Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics

Growing Food is more than Soil and Sun - It's SCIENCE!

3D Printing Growing Baskets for Hydroponics

Peter secured funding for three hydroponic systems, three 3D printers and three laptops for the middle school from Lowe's Toolbox for Education program

Chemistry and Data Collection

Growing Lettuce

The image on the left shows the system set up with 3D printed baskets ready to be installed

The other shows three varieties of lettuce after about 2 weeks

The science of gardening includes experimenting with new techniques, making close observations and troubleshooting. We're not quite sure what's happening with the seedlings at the center of the raft, but by observing and documenting patterns we hope to figure it out!

The photo below shows a beautiful head of a variety called Big Boston

Arts

The arts are often left out of the STEM design. Creativity is fundamental to science

The more involved kids are in the process, the more likely they are to be engaged in learning

Solar Water Heater

Using mostly donated materials, we designed and built a solar water heater with great success

Checking for fit, a 25' black garden hose is coiled inside the box

Using heavy-duty black plastic from a lumber yard, students lined the box and zip-tied the hose in place

The ends of the hose are accessible on both ends

Water is connected to an outside faucet and run until it flows out the other end

Students experiment with how long to leave the apparatus in the sun, angle, direction of orientation, outside temperature, etc.

This design consistently achieves water temps of over 180 degrees

We had good discussions about how this technology could be used to conserve resources and utilized and their ideas were quite creative

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