TFFJ Helps Students Continue Hydroponic Farming and Food Justice Education at Home During the Pandemic

May 19, 2021

By: Matthew Horgan

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, TFFJ has distributed more than 450 at-home hydroponic growing kits to our curricular day and after-school Food Justice Collective students, enabling them to construct small hydroponic systems that grow microgreens and lettuce in their homes. In this way, students who would otherwise engage with TFFJ’s school-based hydroponic farms can still receive a hands-on learning experience, connect the growing of food to food justice, and share what they learn with their families.

“During these times, we have been successful at capturing the kid’s interest in our hands-on growing programs. Some teachers have even experienced kids turning on their cameras for the first time during the online home growing kit lessons,” said Matthew Horgan, TFFJ’s STEM Programming & School Partnership Manager.

Click here for Matthew’s instructions for how to build your own at-home hydroponics kit as well as his questions to help students share what they learn from their growing experience with their families.

Matthew Horgan is the STEM Programming & School Partnership Manager at Teens for Food Justice.

More Reading

Leafy Green Spaetzle

Leafy Green Spaetzle Students in the afterschool club at Urban Assembly Maker Academy, a co-located school at Murry Bergtraum Educational Campus, chose this recipe together

Read More »

TFFJ Spotlight: Harrison Hillier, Senior Hydroponic Systems Manager

Building Hydroponic Farms That Students Can Truly Use | Harrison Hillier didn’t enter college expecting to build hydroponic systems. At the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, he spent long days commuting and often couldn’t go home between classes. He took a job at the plant breeding research station, which shared space with the aquaculture facility. The place was full of old tubs, pumps, PVC pipes, and leftover equipment. When a small human-made pond near the station was drained for construction, he and a friend moved the turtles and fish into one of the giant tubs and built a makeshift aquaponics system out of whatever they could find.

Read More »

Green Juice

Green Juice Erica, one of our summer interns, wanted to make something fresh for the MLK, Jr. Farm. Jackie, our TFFJ Curriculum Development and Program

Read More »

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

DONATE