Kids' Stuff

A fundamental aspect of keeping children engaged in learning is to make learning fun.  Hydroponic gardening projects are a great way to liven up any classroom environment.  Kids will be instantly hooked on hydroponics because the practice goes against everything they may have learned about growing plants.  Until they are introduced to hydroponics, they will think that every plant needs soil to grow.  They will be fascinated by the idea that plants can grow without soil!

Attention-Grabbing Projects
Keeping kids excited about learning is crucial to success.  Growing plants hanging from the ceiling, or in pop-bottles, but not soil is sure to catch their attention.  In Mansfield, Massachusetts, science teacher Robert Cote captivated students with a tomato plant growing project that involved old two-liter bottles and torn-up shirts.  As reported in the Sun Chronicle, students learned the water cycle while producing hefty tomato plants suspended in air. Soda bottles held the nutrient solution, while the old shirts served as wicks carrying the solution to the plant.

Many Applications in the Classroom
Hydroponics projects reach deep into the realm of science and beyond.  Simple experiments help teach biology—including basic principles of plant growth.  Math is involved when calculating nutrient solutions, and writing skills are important for reporting results.  As a subject foreign to many students, history may also be incorporated, as students learn of the origins of the horticultural technique.  (Most likely first used in the first century to grow cucumbers during cold months of the Roman Empire, according to researchers at the University of Arizona.)

Because of the many skills needed to successfully plan, implement and report, hydroponics experiments are great for holistic learning projects.  They involve every skill set a student possesses to work toward a goal.

Easy Experiments
Hydroponics projects can be simple or complex.  These projects are perfect to introduce the concept of variables in scientific experiments.  Students can test different types of light on their plants, and see which plants grow the best.  The students can vary the components of nutrient solutions used to feed their plants.  They will learn cause and effect relationships, and the importance of a control group in the experiment.  They may learn that certain things they thought might influence the plant growth really make no difference.

Information Resources
The internet makes information about hydroponics readily available for everyone.  Many websites provide kids, workbooks and lists of activities involving hydroponics.  A local agricultural agent or cooperative extension program is also a good source for information.

Teachers will find that once they engage their students in simple hydroponics projects, they will be rewarded with better focus and more interested students.  They will also do their communities a service by inspiring children to have an interest in plants and the world around them.

by: Charlene Rennick

Did you know that tomatoes will grow in outer space?  Can you imagine astronauts enjoying a fresh, crunchy salad with their freeze-dried protein powder?

Is there a grocery store floating around the universe?  Where do people who live on a rocket ship get vegetables and fruit?

NASA is word made of four letters that stand for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.   Engineers, who work at NASA, have a very important job to do.  They design greenhouses that can be built outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, on the moon, in deserts or on the cold Arctic and Antarctic continents.  

A greenhouse is a building made of clear walls so the sunlight can shine through every side including the roof.  The heat from the sun is trapped inside the building and warms it.  Bumblebees are used to pollinate the plants because other insects cannot get inside to do this job.  Bumblebees are also really good at keeping away other kinds of insects that will eat the plants or carry diseases to them.

Space greenhouses use a special gardening system called hydroponics, to grow vegetables and fruit in places where gardens cannot normally be planted.   Special hydroponic light bulbs are used instead of sunlight because it is dark all the time in space.  This allows scientists to grow plants on the moon or in the Antarctic where there are only a few months of sunlight.

Hydroponic gardens use very little water.   In outer space, moisture from people (sweat) and plants (transpiration) is recycled, cleaned by a filter and used to water the plants.    Hydroponic greenhouses don’t use soil, either.  The plant’s roots are surrounded by small stones or other bits of material that the roots can cling to inside the container.  

NASA researchers grow lettuce, onions, radishes, basil, peppers, parsley, beans, peas and many other kinds of fruit and vegetables.

Now you know how tomatoes grow on the moon!