Help me give my students a fish tank, water pump, growing media, trays, and food grinder to give them the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature and an aquaponic fish tank.
I want my students to leave my class science career and college ready and to understand the engineering practices and concepts and how they relate to medicine . The biggest challenge with the failure of my school’s bond is the lack of lab equipment and supplies. These kits will fill our void and help reach my goals for my kids.
Many of my students are economically disadvantaged and lack experiences in science, technology and engineering.
Our school does an excellent job of providing many core and elective classes that allow students to explore different areas of science and its applications to the real world. Most of my students have a passion for labs and activities and enjoy being challenged with projects that require them to use the scientific method and engineering practices.
I have done my best to provide the most opportunities and experiences I can in science, but funding does provide its limits on what I can feasibly do. My students would be so honored to be provided with equipment and materials to further their education and experiences. My philosophy is that students learn best by trial and error and self-exploration.
My Project
Living in a low income, rural community, it is incredibly important to me to be able to expose the students in our school to new experiences such as an aquaponics fish tank. As of right now, we have 6 grow stations where we grow garden vegetables and genetically modified pea plants with a short life cycle to teach evolution to AP Biology students. We also have an indoor worm bed filled with Red Wiggler worms to compost vegetables from our cafeteria.
The aquaponics fish tank we are attempting to gain will allow us to grow more food for our worm bed and continue our plant and water cycle from our grow stations, worm bed, and now fish tank.
We plan to let a small amount of the water drained from our worm beds (Worm tea) into the fish tank to allow more minerals into the water, the water will then be fed into connected planting beds to grow vegetables for the worms to be fed. The soil and water gained from the worms are then used to nourish our grow beds.
Our goal is to be recycling all scraps coming from the cafeteria as a way to reduce waste in our school and community. These stations are used to teach the students throughout all of my classes in various ways. I also have a lab assistant who heads up all of these projects.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Freeland and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
