Combining science and a need to help the community, middle school students at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Beaverton have come up with a way to provide nutritious produce for the parish food bank, located on campus.
With the help of a hydroponic unit donated to the school by parishioners, students are adapting a bit of science to produce such veggie favorites as bok choy and lettuce. In the initial days of the ambitious project, two full milk crates of lettuce were delivered to the food closet.
"All of that is delivered by students to the food closet," science teacher and project leader Sarah Woodward said. "It's harvested, planted, all the parts of the process are done by the students, which is super awesome."
Woodward said parishioners began feeling a need to help out the food closet, prompting the purchase of the indoor plant-growing apparatus. "They decided that they've had such luck in their own homes using hydroponic systems, like smaller scale ones for their own use, that they wanted to see if they could raise money to get a more commercially-sized hydroponic system," Woodward said, noting the intent was to get students involved in growing plants in a more sustainable way.
Read more at News Break