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Hydroponics in Schools: Growing Minds and Greens · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and today we're going to be talking about
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  hydroponics in schools.
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  Now, there are a number of people and organizations running hydroponics in schools,
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  and I wanted to go through the benefits and the disadvantages of growing hydroponics in schools.
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  There are a number of projects looking at supplying food into school canteens
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  to supplement diets of pupils and teachers, and this is obviously a potential benefit.
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  Now, you can grow some amount of food. You probably couldn't supply all the
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  food required for a school.
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  You would need a significant farm to do that, and it would be pretty expensive,
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  compared to the budgets that schools get for feeding their children.
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  Certainly in the UK, The budgets are tiny, so you couldn't really set up a small
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  hydroponic farm on the budget in the UK.
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  I know my local school here, the catering department is owned,
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  is run by a company that is owned by Denise Coates, who is, she owns Bet365.
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  This company makes...
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  Millions of pounds a year. Denise Coates makes millions of pounds a year and
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  she's a billionaire and they don't run this company as a charity and the kids
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  get a very, very small budget.
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  So they're unlikely that Denise Coates is going to invest in hydroponics for
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  her school catering company that dominates the UK.
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  She's a piece of work if you look into her. So yeah, she doesn't pay anywhere
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  near as much in tax as she should and as many billionaires are like that.
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  So why might you invest in hydroponics in a school if it's not economical to use it to feed children?
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  Well, it's a good educational source as well. So it's a good source of learning.
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  Obviously, kids learn about growing food in school, both in primary and senior school.
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  You hear a lot of reports saying, oh, they should teach kids how to grow food
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  in schools. Or, you know, every week I get sick of it.
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  You know, another one, oh, they should teach kids practical skills in school.
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  They should teach kids, you know, British values.
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  You know, they should teach kids, well, how about teaching them just the basics
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  of how to actually do maths and write.
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  We could start there, couldn't we? That might help UK and worldwide productivity.
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  We could just get the basics right, rather than, you know, saying,
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  oh, they should teach kids, you know, how to play, you know,
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  handball or something like that.
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  I've gone off on a divergent. Hydroponics. What can it add other than getting
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  a load of soil in and having an allotment in the school and growing vegetables directly in the soil?
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  Well, it can showcase new and innovative and scientific methods.
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  That's the key thing here.
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  So, yes, you could grow in the soil, you could have an allotment and that could be good for.
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  Food science and what used
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  to be called home economics and and you
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  know sort of basic budgeting and things like this it could be used for biology
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  but at the end of the day hydroponics involves
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  engineering and involves a
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  lot of maths and precision and
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  so you can teach a lot more with hydroponic setup and also
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  it's 12 months of the year if you think about a school term time
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  then they can potentially or or
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  certainly even a university they can be away from
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  the the physical site of education
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  when most plants are growing so it provides
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  12 months a year opportunity to grow crops and you
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  can they can see a result in a few weeks if you're growing something like
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  a lettuce or some microgreens or some leafy
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  greens things like this so it's a really good
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  opportunity to to to sort
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  of not gamify but get a quick
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  reward for for their
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  efforts for the people's efforts whereas if you're growing cabbages
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  they will have forgotten that they've grown they planted a cabbage in september
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  and um and then comes around to february and it's time to harvest it the other
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  opportunities obviously there's a lot of it's a lot of maths there's units and
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  measurements and things like this that you have to get right otherwise the plants die.
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  There's a lot of chemistry involved, so you've got all the elements on the periodic
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  table, a lot of them are involved in.
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  Growing plants, so there's the 12 essential macronutrients and micronutrients.
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  There's things like silicon that are additive to and beneficial to plants growth.
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  Then there's the toxins like sodium and arsenic and cobalt and nickel and things like this.
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  So there's a large aspect of chemistry.
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  There's also agrochemicals, pesticides, biostimulants
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  that you can bring in organic chemistry into
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  and there's also if
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  you're interested in the chemistry then check out our periodic
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  table of plant health that's free to
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  download from our website just type periodic table of plant health into google
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  and utreema even without utreema it might still come up and you can get a free
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  download there this big poster that can be printed off if you're in a uk school
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  and you'd like a copy of that poster i can send you a hard copy as well so there's the chemistry aspect,
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  there's the maths aspect.
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  Obviously there's biology.
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  It's not just the biology, the pests and the beneficial organisms.
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  It's a big area you can feed into there and you can use that.
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  There's physics, obviously there's the engineering, and also you can link it
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  into space exploration.
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  In geography, you could link it to the human geography aspect.
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  There's the ability to grow crops on islands with toxic
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  soils so things like new caledonia where they have something called a i think
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  it's a serpentine soil which is very high in heavy metals can't go there the
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  antarctic and then space exploration and mars colonization that feeds into physics
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  so that's a really good for like a physics after school club things like that.
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  And then there's the business aspect as well. So you can teach kids about basic
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  business techniques using hydroponics and they can sell the things that they
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  grow and they can work out their margins for that.
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  So very useful for ornamental plants.
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  There's a couple of schools in the UK that grow orchids commercially and they've been very successful.
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  Orchids by their nature are hydroponic because you don't.
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  The epiphytic orchids that live in
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  trees don't actually grow in soil so they're
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  by their very nature are hydroponic and it's hydroponic cultivation in
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  bark and yes mainly broken bits
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  of bark is what they grow in so that's one hydroponic setup
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  that's being used in schools there's an advantage of just growing
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  plants in the soil is that you can grow more exotic plants
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  and it looks cool as well so having things
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  that look cool is always good when it's when
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  it comes to teaching people and making
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  them interested in things so both from the student's
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  perspective they'd rather be in a warm
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  greenhouse or in a grow room on a winter's day than
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  out digging holes in the cold trust me
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  i've been a horticultural lecturer it's a lot more enjoyable in
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  the greenhouse than it is outdoors digging a hole and on
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  open days and things like this if you're a private school then you can
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  attract and pupils are more
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  importantly their parents by having a really cool
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  setup with moving parts and led lights
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  and things like this and fans and water gushing around and
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  pumps than you could with just some plants in plant pots so i'd say that it's
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  easy to dismiss that but it's actually a major point things that can attract
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  people to to go to your school and get a good intake of students can be make
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  or break for a school you You know.
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  Lots of schools are going bust here in the UK because they've put tax on the fees that they're paid.
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  And if you can attract more people to your school by having hydroponics in the biology lab, then...
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  Then that could be a win-win and you could become famous for it.
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  You know, you could be the school that grows crops hydroponically and feeds their pupils.
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  Even if it's a few heads of lettuce every week, it's still a good news story.
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  And, you know, you might struggle for space, but there's one school here near
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  Leicester that's just set up an e-gaming suite for their students.
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  So they've got the room for that.
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  I'm sure they've got the room for a hydroponics unit and grow room.
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  So have you growing hydroponics in your school?
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  Any school that your kids go to? Was it a success? Was it a failure?
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  Obviously, it's going to live and die by the enthusiasm of the teachers and
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  the adult helpers and the PTA and the pupils.
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  If one of those is lacking in enthusiasm, and the head teacher as well,
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  if one of those is lacking in enthusiasm, then it could die a death.
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  But it's certainly a very good learning resource for
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  kids if it's done right so let me
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  know your thoughts so my computer there just decided i
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  was going to do a update and it took about 20 minutes so
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  i forgot what i was going to talk about next anyway additional
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  advantages of hydroponics as a learning tool in
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  schools hands-on learning for science
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  a few and far between opportunities for
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  for growing plants and teaching about photosynthesis and things like this in
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  schools it's often a very very small aspect of the curriculum so hydroponics
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  can really help with that making biology lessons more fun when it comes to plants
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  it promotes critical thinking and problem solving and.
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  Hydroponics is just solving one problem after another until
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  you will finally get to a crop so that's that
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  encourages sustainability awareness really especially
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  water conservation in the uk we have
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  ample amounts of rain but in other areas hydroponics is
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  a really good way of saving water can talk about food
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  security so that'll feed into a lot of geography lessons
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  and sustainable agricultural practices and we've
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  talked about the cross-curricular connections between maths
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  and economics and business things like
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  this and as i said if it's after school clubs
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  and business clubs and things like this then it's increases student
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  engagement and so that's a good point there and
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  teamwork as well encouraging teamwork one really good point is if you've got
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  an urban school where there might not even be a playground or if the playground
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  is just tarmac like schools in london for example or birmingham then hydroponic
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  systems can be set up to provide some green space.
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  You could have a green wall in a school where you would normally,
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  you know, it would break up the concrete and provide some plants for the students
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  to look at. So that's a really important point.
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  We've talked about that, you know, environmental, entrepreneurial partnerships
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  with local businesses and universities.
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  We saw that, talked previously about that tie-up between Swansea University
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  and the local schools. No, it wasn't Swansea, was it? It was Wrexham.
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  Where Ryan Reynolds hangs out, the Wrexham University and the local schools
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  where they were growing all the different crops required to make a pizza.
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  And it was a space pizza they were looking at for growing food in space or on Mars.
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  So it's a really good tie-in with local universities. If any local schools want
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  to get involved with Utreema, as I say, we can provide posters,
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  we can provide fertilizer, and depending on the project, depending on the school,
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  really. So get in touch if that's the case.
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  And finally, it's a great gateway way to green careers.
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  Introduces students to emerging fields such as vertical farming,
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  ag tech, food science, biopesticides, all the areas that are going to be big
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  as we go into the next few decades.
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  Compared with what is the current situation in high schools or senior schools
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  here in the UK where horticulture is seen where you put the dumb kids into.
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  So if you fail your GCSEs or it looks like you're going to fail your GCSEs,
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  you get put on a Royal Horticultural Society course, an RHS course.
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  And this means that you still get a qualification, but you're not put into the GCSE league tables.
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  And the school gets bumped up the league tables because they got rid of all
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  the thick kids and the underperforming kids.
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  And so this results in a lot of people getting horticultural qualifications
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  and the horticultural industry getting flooded with people who aren't very good,
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  where really we want the top of the top, because it should be an industry that.
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  Is extremely scientific and business-led and attracts people who can problem-solve
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  using lateral thinking and from different aspects of science,
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  maths, business, the environment, things like this.
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  So hopefully hydroponics could encourage that in schools
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  and make the
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  teachers see that horticulture and agriculture
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  is not where you just send the divvies
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  it's where you actually send people
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  who've got real potential because you think
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  about it a plant has thousands times more genes than a human does it has thousands
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  of times more chemicals and biochemical processes and there are 200,000 species
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  of plant and only one species of human so if you think about you know,
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  let's send the clever kids to do medicine.
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  Well, one human is a really simple biological organism compared to maybe 50
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  different crops of plants.
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  So you should actually be encouraging the clever students to do horticulture and agriculture.
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  But that's definitely not the case in the UK.
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  If it is the case in other countries, then let me know. Obviously in Holland,
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  Wagenen University, the horticultural university, is one of the top universities
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  in Holland, if not in Europe, and it's the premier university for horticulture.
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  So it'd be interesting to know how horticulture is seen in Holland or in,
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  say, California, compared to is in the UK, where it's definitely much seen as
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  the place where you put the kids who are failing.
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  They, you know, fail the GCSEs, their high school diploma, and then they go
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  off to FE college, Further Education College, and do a horticulture course,
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  which is very, very disheartening.
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  Let me know your thoughts. Pretty controversial, but I'd be interested to know
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  if you've got any other experiences or seen how hydroponics is used in schools to different effects.
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  I think green walls, green roofs, things like this is a massive opportunity,
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  especially if we're going to.
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  Be good if we can embed them into schools and design schools
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  around them imagine if you had green walls in the
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  architectural plans of schools when they're being built
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  that would be fantastic wouldn't it okay that's been
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  enough 100 minutes daily for today if you found it interesting please give an
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  apple podcast review and if you're not on apple then
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  don't give a review because it's useless any other platform doesn't
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  work but if you could check out
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  utreema.co.uk and check out the periodic
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  table of plant health and download your
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  own copy yeah say if you're a school or if you're one of
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  our customers i can send you a hard copy not if
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  you buy like a 12 pound bottle of seaweed you're not
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  getting a free copy because it cost me 20 pounds to print but if you're an existing
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  customer and you're you do big volumes with us then i'll send you a poster i'm
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  not i'm here claiming i'm gonna give a free poster out to anyone but you can
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  certainly get a free download and print it yourself go on check out utreema.co.uk
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  and or just google utreema periodic table of plant health.
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  Thank you very much for listening. Until next time, goodbye.