Friendship Build with Right Track +

About the Spark-Y Right Track+ Internship: The Right Track+ program is a collaboration between Ramsey County, the City of Saint Paul, local employers, and community organizations including Spark-Y. The goal of this program is to provide job training and professional development to unemployed or underemployed young adults experiencing the negative economic impacts of the pandemic for the purpose of assisting them in entering an in-demand career pathway.

The following post was written by Chue Yang, Right Track+ Intern with Spark-Y.

Friendship Build with Right Track +

Near the end of August, Spark-Y teamed up with some volunteers from Accenture to help build a raised bed and compost bin for Friendship Academy of Arts. I have been an intern with Spark-Y for a couple of months now and each week there were always exciting new projects for the interns to work on. There was the hope that it will not rain, as I helped the Sustainability and Agriculture Director, Caitlin, set up two large white tents for the compost bin and raised garden bed projects. 

The day before, I had to grab a large 50 gallons water barrel from the University of Minnesota which barely fit in my little Prius for the project build. Spark-Y continued to find ways to reuse old and donated materials to create sustainable projects that are closely tied to its mission of empowering youth with hands-on education and sustainability.

As we prepared the materials and started to cut the wood pieces for the two projects, Accenture volunteers and the students at Friendship Academy of Art began to show up. Students take turns drilling holes and screwing the wood pieces together. The Accenture volunteers were great at leading and guiding the students. The structures for holding the compost bin and the raised garden bed started to take their form. The feeling of seeing the two projects coming together brought smiles both to the adults and small students.

Compost Bin Structure & Raised Garden Bed Project Build

It was such as cool experience to see the little shy students, who were a little scared of the loud noise of the saws and drills at first, started to want to take turns cutting and putting the wood pieces together for the compost bin and raised garden bed structure. One student proudly expressed that she “loved drill” as she finished screwing the last few screws for the structures that would hold the compost bin. A little student who was probably still in preschool bravely volunteered to drill some holes into the water barrel that will be used as the compost bin. It brought a smile to my face seeing how much joy the students were having with the project build.

Completing the two projects took less than three hours with the help of the students and volunteers. This experience made me realize how important it is to work together as a team. It showed that more students should have the opportunity to learn about sustainability. They learned not only the importance of creating a compost bin that will turn food waste and old plant materials into compost to grow more food but also got to try something new. I also noticed that not many organizations would have their staff with executive positions working on the ground to help students learn. It just showed how much Spark-Y cared about the learning of youth and creating growth through sustainability.

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Learn more about Friendship Academy Build Day in our previous blog post here.

Growing A Green Campus: Friendship Academy Build Day

At the end of August we joined Friendship Academy for their back-to-school open house. The excitement in the air was palpable on campus after a year of virtual schooling. After a mentally and emotionally exhausting year, things are looking up and we are excited for what is to come. 

To kick-off the school year, we joined the kiddos at Friendship Academy expand their green campus by building a compost bin and an additional grow bed for their garden. We had more than 20 students ranging from pre-K to 8th grade assisting us throughout the day, along with Spark-Y staff, interns, and volunteers from Accenture. Even Mother Nature lended a hand -- what was supposed to be a stormy day, held out until the very end. Nothing was going to get in the way of some good ol’ hands-on sustainability education!

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The site included three work stations throughout the day: measure, cut, and assembly. Volunteers from Accenture helped facilitate these stations and youth popped in-and-out, able to engage in what interested them, while their parents spoke to teachers.

A 5th grader named S'Sence (pronounced Essence) proclaimed: "I like drills now," after working with our assembly team to drill holes in the compost bin. Participants in our build days often share that their favorite part of Spark-Y build days is exposing students to materials and experiences that aren’t typically used in classrooms, to help broaden their learning. 

Our Right Track+ interns were also there to help facilitate the build with one of our interns, Jordan, helping the younger students to identify veggies in the garden and dissect them. The tomatoes and watermelon were definitely crowd pleasers.

One student at the academy ended up sneaking away from her mom during the open house because she wanted to help us out with the build. Her mom found her safe and sound working on measuring boards as we were welcoming our second round of volunteers. We don’t blame her - building a garden and compost bin at your school is pretty darn cool!

We are so glad to have been able to start off the school year with this build at Friendship Academy. Our sustainability educator Sarah shares: “It was neat to see the students being so courageous with the build and being willing to try new things.” It serves as a reminder of the importance of hands-on and sustainability education for youth, especially after a year of many ups and downs. Students are resilient and we know they have a great year ahead of them. 

Our partnership with Accenture helped to make this day possible. Their sponsorship of the event and volunteer assistance was invaluable. It was one of our first times having volunteers leading stations and it worked so well that we intend to replicate it for future projects. 

Special thanks to Accenture, Friendship Academy, Spark-Y and Right Track+ interns, as well as our dedicated staff. What a joy to watch this garden grow knowing young people will have access to fresh produce and composting right on campus for years to come.

Aquaponic System Build with Oak Hill Montessori

At Spark-Y, we are working with our partners to collectively navigate distance-learning, and at the same time, we recognize the importance of hands-on learning activities that engage the hearts, hands, and minds of young people. With Oak Hill Montessori School returning to in-person learning, we were able to partner with them to give students hands-on experience learning about sustainability and power tools while creating their very own aquaponic system. After creating this system, they will now be able to take care of fish and grow plants right at the school! Of course, all Covid-19 precautions were put into place during this build in order to make this happen as safely as possible. The build was outside, masks were required, and students rotated to stations in small groups. 

Why do we love building aquaponic systems you may ask? Well, it's a great tool to teach concepts such as sustainability, biology, chemistry, math, and much more. Aquaponic systems facilitate a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants. Fish waste adds ammonia to the system. Bacteria then converts the ammonia into nitrites and then nitrates. Plants use nitrates to create proteins for growth, and in return the fish get clean water. It’s an incredible way to grow fresh produce all year long!

Now that we got the biology lesson out of the way, let’s talk about why hands-on learning is so important. First of all, it's fun and engaging. I don't know about you but when I was sitting for a school lecture I often found myself day-dreaming and not soaking in a lot of the information. It is so important to facilitate learning with several senses at once. Young people need room to tinker, make mistakes, and try again. Particularly in the era of Covid, it is important to keep students from getting screen fatigue by adding some hands-on learning opportunities into their curriculum.

Of course, the students at Oak Hill were excited to not only be away from their screens doing hands-on learning, but also to be outside and using tools. They rotated to three stations throughout the day for the build. One station measured dimensions of the wood planks for the tank, another cut the wood, and the last station assembled the aquaponic tank.

While assembling the system, one student, Saphira, said, “I’m excited to have fish we can take care of in our own garden. I am grateful for Spark-Y because we get to have hands-on experience during Covid instead of just studying. It makes school so much more fun.”

Throughout this process, the students had lots of energy because they were so excited about the project. While we love the enthusiasm, I also made the point that in construction projects like this one, efficiency is key. I told them, "if you're not paying attention, you're not being efficient and potentially creating an unsafe environment for your team." To my surprise the students really resonated with that, and one student even started calling out to other students, "that's not efficiency!" whenever other students were goofing around. As time went on more students were yelling, "efficiency!" when they completed a certain task. I really got a kick out of this because in my professional experience my bosses have always harped about efficiency. This is something that was encouraged but never taught in school. This is why hands-on learning is so important to me and many others. Without it we miss the nuances between practice and theory. The aquaponics build was truly a great way for students at Oak Hill to take a break from the screen and learn about aquaponics and sustainability.

Students at Oak Hill Montessori school now have their very own aquaponic system where they can grow produce right at the school. They can now work together to care for their system and continue hands-on learning during Covid and beyond!

Written by Ryland Sorensen - Spark-Y Sustainability Educator

Columbia Heights Launch and Smooth 80’s Jams

The following blog post was written by Wolid Ahmed, Education Facilitator / Americorps:

About the program:

Columbia Heights High School (CHHS) are one of the newer Sparky programs in the 2017-2018 school year. Our big-picture goal is to empower high school students through student-led design, planning, and build of an aquaponics system.

CHHS is an after-school program, allowing our curriculum to be more flexible. The students we serve in this program already have a little background in agriculture with their own school farm on campus.

We've had a great start to the program school year and we're looking forward to keeping it going.

Spark-Y days at CHHS:

Coming in as an education facilitator at Spark-Y was a little daunting. There is a lot riding on us doing well. We are expected to help lead these young minds to be empowered, live sustainably, and then pass that forward to others. So I was really nervous about it all, but I didn't need to be nervous at all. From the start, these students were amped about aquaponics - and in particular fish!!!

Two students were already well-versed in fish and fish care, and had already began debating on the types of fish the aquaponics system should have. CHHS students were ready-to-go, energized to learn as much as possible.

To begin, we started by outlining our expectations and goals for the program in the coming year, in the spirit of collaborative conversation. We felt that was necessary to empower these young adults to have a say in what they want to learn about.

Since this is a once-a-week program for three hours, we provide as much information to the students as possible on program days. To kick-off the education, we presented information on nitrogen cycles. Then, slowly building up to learning about structural design by exploring with popsicle sticks. Students were really good at meeting expectations, and with a little encouragement, were willing to stretch their thinking outside-the-box.

My fellow facilitator, Becca, and I had them practice systems design. We created design drivers to help them think more outside-the-lines. We put time limits on designs, as they stretched into areas of new thinking, individually and in groups.

The whole class was really chill and wanted to be there doing the projects. Becca was the MC and played her favorite hits from the 80's and 90's.

The design date for a full-scale aquaponics system needed to be pushed back, so we put together hands-on projects to jumpstart the group. This resulted in a mini aquaponics system assembly project, with student-designed lighting systems to provide light for the plants in the system. The students were the ones running the ship. They worked together in assembling and then designing and pitching their design to the other students in the class and voting on who's was more structurally sound. Some of the students were really detailed in there design of the light fixture. Everyone was getting in on the cutting of the PVC and assembly of it. Students that didn't like to talk much were engaged and were really enjoying the process.

CHHS System Design and Build

A few weeks later, students would get to design a larger system for their school. The youth had a lot of say in the process, including mocking up designs for our Operations Director, Sam Menzies. Sam would mash a lot of their ideas together to create a sound structure conceptualized by students.

Once we had the design finalized with the students, it was off to the build.

We've had two builds with the students so far and both we very productive.  Everyone was excited about the build.

We set up the stations for cutting and drilling the lumber. Becca was the designated MC again, playing “Africa” by TOTO and Sam air played every instrument, with me lip-syncing “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas to myself.

The builds were fun and upbeat.  We didn't have a shortage of work to do and every student was eager to start the tasks needed.

Thus far, we have finished about 1/3 of the build. So that means the build will likely head into the second semester, with more students to potentially sign up for the program. I think the students really enjoyed being there and had a blast doing activities you normally wouldn’t be doing in a school setting: ideating, designing, building, and learning… and all while enjoying those smooth 80’s jams.