Local Resources, Local Growth

A few months ago I was talking with one of the teachers at the school about our ideas for upcoming projects with the students. I’ve worked with her extensively in various classes before, and together we formed an environmental committee at the school. I wanted to plant student gardens in order to increase access to nutritious vegetables and provide the students with a a hands-on opportunity to grow their own crops without using harmful fertilizer etc. In talking with Profesora Marita she told me she’d heard something about “Hidroponia” and was interested in trying it. She asked if I knew anything about it and if I’d partner with her on this project. To be completely honest I had no idea what hidropnia was, but typical of my personality I gave her an enthusiastic “Si, por supuesto!”response and then ran home to do some research. I’ve found it is incredibly important to capitalize on preexisting interests and ideas of community partners if you want a project to be successful, so I latched on to this casual comment about “hidroponia” and ran with it.

After some research I found out that hidroponia is hydroponic gardening in English (which honestly didn’t clarify anything). However, after a bit more investigating I became really excited about this potential project and thought it would be perfect for our students. Simply, hydroponic gardening is growing plants without the use of soil. It is an innovative approach to agriculture and has been used in areas where the climate and soil are typically unable to produce vegetables, areas where food security is an issue, and in science classrooms. Hydroponic gardening allows you to grow different types of plants that wouldn’t typically grow in a particular environment, because you have the opportunity to manipulate the nutrients available to the plants. I’ll explain the process…

First of all, I began by giving educational sessions about the process of hydroponic gardening and its benefits to all 220+ high school students at Virgen del Carmen. I worked with the science teachers to organize our action plan, and they contributed substantially to the development of this project. As a whole the students were enthusiastic about the project and after seeing my photos and presentations they were excited to make their own hydroponic tables. We contracted a local carpenter to construct 8 simple tables- they’re about 3 feet tall, 4 feet long, 3 feet wide and about 6 inches deep.

After the tables were constructed we lined each one with sturdy black plastic and stapled it in place. Afterwards we heated 1 inch diameter pipes in order to burn holes into large sheets of Styrofoam. The sheets of Styrofoam are the same dimensions of the tables we’re using, and each sheet of has 32 holes. Meanwhile, each student was given lettuce seeds which they planted in small plastic containers filled with fine gravel. When the lettuce seeds had small roots, we transferred each small plant into a small sponge resting in a Dixie-cup with the bottom cut out.

I applied for a grant through the World Connect organization “Kids to Kids” program, presenting my project “Environmental Entrepreneurs: Local Resources for Local Growth.” This project includes recycling, hydroponic gardening, and a youth entrepreneurship class. The hydroponic gardening projects have been supported by the students themselves and this grant will allow us to continue and expand the project.

Poroto is dedicated to agriculture, so learning innovative gardening techniques will provide the community and youth with new methods to integrate into their farming. Traditional methods of agriculture here in Poroto utilize an atrocious amount of pesticides and other harmful chemicals, which not only harm the body and local environment, but also dramatically decrease the nutritional value of produce. The organic lettuce is an opportunity to improve local nutrition as well as provide local students with an innovative agricultural tool that can be used on their own. The “organic” craze has been popular for years in the US, and Peru is beginning to catch on, so students could capitalize on this emerging market in the future by considering selling organic lettuce or other vegetables to vendors in Trujillo. More than anything, hydroponic gardening has been an excellent hands-on learning tool, and the students have been actively involved in each step of the process. We recently had our first “harvest” of hydroponic lettuce and it was quite a success! Although there is room for improvement, the vast majority of lettuce worked out quite well. In fact, I shared a delicious hydroponic lettuce salad with my host family for lunch today!