First 17 in 2017: The Highlights

The Spark-Y team has really hit the ground running in 2017!

We’re only three months into this new year and we’ve already accomplished a lot. Here are 17 highlights for the start of 2017:

1) We added a new member to our team. Michelle Chmura joined our Spark-Y family, accepting the position as Action Educator for Crossroads Elementary.

2) Minneapolis Mayor visited our Shark Tank day at Northeast Middle School and declared January 13th NEMS/Spark-Y Sustainability Day in the city of Minneapolis!  Read about more about this exciting day here.

3) We had a FANTASTIC build day at Northeast Middle School in January - when all 150 7th graders participated in constructing the system they designed. (Yeah, kids with power tools!)

4) We kicked off a professional mentorship program with our amazing sponsor, Lube-Tech.

5) Summer internship applications are open, and we are already interviewing candidates! Learn more about our annual summer internship here.

6) Students at the Integrated Arts Academy made a pitch to funders from their school districts, proposing their designs for a bigger aquaponics system.

7) Our Operations Team started koi breeding at the Urban Ag Lab, an exciting potential for revenue raising to bolster support for school programming.

8) Our Mushroom lab has had an overhaul: we are growing at the Urban Ag Lab and teaching workshops. Watch our facebook page for upcoming events!

9) The DIY Bio Lab is expanding into new topics, supplying our educators with new classroom kits and science learning. You can learn more about DIY Bio on the Urban Ag Lab page, here.

10) Our Board of Directors is launching an Innovation Committee, aimed at pushing Spark-Y into frontiers of cutting-edge projects.

11) Edison High School launched an impressive aquaponics system. The largest school aquaponics system in the state, maybe even the WORLD!

12) Spark-Y Founder, Mary Helen Franze, was a key speaker at the Eide Bailly Resourcefulness Event.

13) Our Lab Director, Destiny Zeibol, and Program Director, Rhiannon Dalrymple, led an arduino workshop for professional teacher development at Crossroads Elementary. Teachers were inspired and educated on the use of arduinos in classrooms.

14) Roosevelt Urban Farm Squad have overhauled the waste system at their school, and are leading a student-driven recycling awareness and collection program! 

15) Our classes at Bright Water Montessori have put together two vermicomposting bins which are aimed at helping the school use their food waste as a resource.

16 ) Spring is just around the corner so our students are busy working on garden plans, raising seedlings, and the Spark-Y spring plant sale! Be sure to friend us on Facebook for plant sale announcements.

17) We are planning an incredible FUNdraiser - the Spark-Y Urban Adventure Race! August 5th will be an action-packed, fun-filled day in Uptown, Minneapolis.  Proceeds will go right back into making 2017 the best year yet.  Learn more here.

Here's to a great kick-off in 2017!

Shark Tank Gains Citywide Attention

Spark-Y has always been about empowering youth and letting students take control of their education and their future, and students who participate in Shark Tank events in Spark-Y programs get to do just that. These activities are great learning experiences for all ages and have been used throughout the semester in all kinds of schools, including Northeast Middle School, Prairie View Elementary, and Edison High School in the EASY Pro program!

Shark Tanks are an interdisciplinary activity that showcase the student ideas for the design and utilization of the sustainable systems being installed through their Spark-Y program. Preparing their ideas, designs and pitches is often an intensive group project – a great opportunity to practice those all-important teamwork skills in a supported way. Shark Tanks, where students pitch their projects to a panel of experts or community members, also allow students to showcase their developing professional skills, including greetings and handshakes, oral and visual communication, and problem solving and critical thinking. Students get the opportunity to take real ownership, not only of these projects and their education, but also of the bigger developments on their school campus’.

The Shark Tank event at Northeast Middle School on Friday Jan 13th is one that will go down in Spark-Y history! 7th graders pitched their aquaponics system designs and utilization plans to an all-star panel of professionals from the school district, and city and state leadership. We were so humbled to have the following wonderful people support our students:
Mayor Betsy Hodges, Senior Policy Adviser to the Mayor Phillipe Cunningham, Council Member Kevin Reich, Senator Jim Carlson, Michael Thomas MPS Chief of Academics, Leadership & Learning, Macarre Traynham MPS Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, Naomi Taylor MPS Co-Chair of Pedagogy of Equity, Ed Graff MPS Superintendent, Betsy Stretch MPS STEM Curriculum Integration Specialist , Eric Moore MPS Chief of Accountability, Innovation, & Research, Susanne Griffin MPS Deputy Chief Academic Officer, Jenny Arneson MPS Board of Education Treasurer, Jackie Hanson MPS Associate Superintendent and Vernon Rowe Principal of Northeast Middle School.

PHEW!

To top it all off – the Mayor proclaimed Friday Jan 13th 2017 to be Northeast Middle School / Spark-Y Sustainability day in the City of Minneapolis!

What a powerful way to show these kids that they are seen, they are heard, and they are respected leaders in our community. Shout out to a community that shows up for youth!