The hydroponic program at Oak Park and River Forest High School recently set up shop at the local farmers market to spread awareness about the benefits of hydroponic farming.
Students from the environmental science program attended the Oak Park Farmers Market on Sept. 16 with teacher Michelle Zhang. Their table was covered with glass jars, each one filled with a mix of water and nutrients and topped with a little plastic cup.
Inside the cup were clay balls and a plug made of peat, out of which a seedling grew, feeding from the nutrients in the water below. Jars were for sale for $10, and each one came with instructions for how to keep the plant alive and healthy.
“We’re really just hoping more people are aware of why we need to have a stable food system, have access to local fresh food, and how just generally gardening and growing greens is good for the environment,” Zhang said. The goal was also to empower people through the knowledge that “you can grow this at home,” she added.
Hayden Javerner, a senior in the hydroponics program, explained its benefits. “We need to have access to veggies and stuff, and a lot of places don’t have that,” he said. “This is a way to do that, especially with…global warming…It’s not going to counteract it but it’s a way we can adapt to it and keep going.”
Hydroponics is a technique of growing plants using a water-based nutrient solution rather than soil. With scientists predicting we have only a decade until our climate damage is irreversible, its advocates say that promoting hydroponics has never
been more important.
Conventional farming accounts for 21% of global emissions, making agriculture the fourth leading industry in pollution. Hydroponic farming absorbs carbon from the atmosphere without disturbing the earth, leaving positive effects on the environment.
OPRF’s involvement with hydroponics stems from its environmental science course, taught by Zhang. The course includes a hydroponics unit in which students thoroughly explore the mechanics and operations of a functioning hydroponics lab.
This year, Zhang decided to keep the lab going over the summer. “I was sitting in a couple sustainability meetings with Oak Park village people, and thought to myself, ‘If one of the goals is to produce more fresh food and encourage sustainability within the village, we might as well be using this space throughout the year.’”
The food that gets grown is donated to Beyond Hunger, a local charity, through weekly drop offs.
There are many ways to do hydroponics, but at OPRF they use two methods, rafts and nutrient film technique, or NFT. Rafts float on top of the water, with space for small soil-less pots. The NFT system uses pumps to deliver nutrient-rich water to plants and a pipe to remove water.
On a tour of the hydroponics room, Javerner pointed out the differences between the two systems. “The rafts are just a bunch of water filled up underneath the secured plants,” he said. “The NFT system is just a giant bin of water basically, and it’s got a pump, and so the water goes up
through these chutes.”
Hydroponics may sound technical, but we can use the techniques at home to sustainably grow food. Xiomara Grachan, a senior, said that, “Learning about hydroponics in the last couple days has been very eye opening and definitely something I’ll bring home and try out. The fact it’s this easy and we don’t do it is concerning.”