Through an aquaponics partnership with Kentucky State University, students at Eminence High School learn that jobs in STEM are “more and different than what they were imagining.” For several years, Karin Ceralde, an Eminence science teacher, has been teaching a hands-on aquaponics unit to her biology classes. For the first time in the 2020-21 school year, Mrs. Ceralde also taught a full aquaponics class. The inclusion of hands-on aquaponics learning in high school classrooms has been funded by a National Institute of Food and Agriculture/United States Department of Agriculture Capacity Building Grant, received by KYSU and led by Dr. Kenneth Thompson, Dr. Kirk Pomper, and Dr. James Tidwell. KYSU Extension and research associates Chelsea Walling (aquaculture) and Brandon Preece (environmental science) also work with the grant, which is titled “Integrating aquaculture in and outside the classroom through innovative hands-on learning opportunities that support STEM education in Kentucky.” 

The purpose of bringing aquaponics to high school students is to allow them to learn scientific concepts across many disciplines through a hands-on project. Though this year’s instruction has been modified to fit COVID-19 restrictions, students create and manage their own aquaponics system in their classroom. Students collaboratively design and engineer a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) that is stationed in their classroom. After the RAS is completed, students collaboratively design, set up, and integrate an aquaponics system containing a propagation tray (i.e., hydroponic grow-bed tank) that rests above the fiberglass tank where the fish reside. Students work in small groups and learn how to measure important water quality parameters and how to operate several handheld portable scientific meters to measure water temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen concentrations. Students also engage in mathematical practices in the classroom and measure growth performance and feed efficiency. “They are really loving the opportunity to see all the different jobs that are associated with something like aquaponics,” Mrs. Ceralde said. Her students rotate through the many jobs that need to be done— working with the plants, working with the fish, checking the pumps and the water quality, and more. “Some of the jobs they like better than others, so it’s a little bit of a taste, a teeny tiny taste, of the variety of jobs that are out there surrounding this work,” Mrs. Ceralde said. Dr. Thompson, who has been the primary KYSU representative for Mrs. Ceralde’s classroom, said she is a talented teacher who has made the aquaponics unit a success for her students. “Mrs. Ceralde is so dedicated to make sure that her students have an enduring understanding of the targeted concepts,” Dr. Thompson said. Many of her students enjoyed the unit so much in their biology class that they signed up to take the elective class solely focused on aquaponics systems this year. Students have taken “a big interest,” Mrs. Ceralde said. “They realize that it’s more and different than what they were imagining,” she said. “They do tend to be more interested in general because it’s a hands-on thing. Even my toughest kids— the ones that really don’t want to be in science class, they don’t like traditional ways of learning— those kids are thriving and just really showing lots of potential.” “It was clear that students at Eminence showed so much confidence in their ability to engage in authentic, hands-on engineering and mathematical tasks and to use various authentic technological tools pertaining to aquaculture,” Dr. Thompson said. In addition to Mrs. Ceralde’s students in Eminence, Kentucky, students at Russellville, Fleming County, Owen County, Scott County, Jessamine County, Western Hills in Franklin County, and Danville are also learning through hands-on aquaponics projects thanks to KYSU and this grant.

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture 1890 Capacity Building Program, award #2017-38821-26442.