In a small red shed behind Luther Jackson Middle School, Mark Smith plucked a piece of spinach off the plant and took a bite.
“Tastes like victory,” he said.
“Better than the Trader Joe’s spinach,” an eighth-grader chimed in behind him. Fifteen engineering students at the Fairfax County middle school, led by Smith, their engineering teacher, have developed and built a vertical farm growing lettuce and spinach that is harvested and donated to the school’s food pantry.
The farm at Luther Jackson uses aquaponics technology, combining the methods of hydroponics, growing plants with water rather than soil, and aquaculture, the process of growing and raising fish. The fish waste is used as nutrients to fertilize the plants, which filters the water to be reused in the fish tank.
Dahlia Kassim, one of the eighth-graders involved in the project, explained the closed-loop system as she gestured to the small tank of tilapia the students were raising.
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