Spark-Y staff share their passions at CONvergence

The following post was written by Michelle Chmura, Spark-Y Education Facilitator, on her experience at the CONvergence Convention.

Spark-Y had the opportunity this year to participate in CONvergence, a four day geek-a-thon where fans of all kind come together to share their passions. With just three workshops for the weekend, over 150 people stepped through to learn about vermicomposting, mycology and Ohm’s law. Each workshop included take home goodies, home instructions and an interactive lesson.

With vermicomposting, we spoke about our humble friend, the red wiggler worm, and how Mark Watney’s (from Andy Weir’s The Martian) version of composting doesn’t fit the bill with what we do on Earth. Each of the visitors for this panel left with a few worms and the knowledge to start and maintain their own vermicomposting bin.

Spark-Y’s mini mycology lesson “Preparing for the Fungal Invasion” was a riot with guests, where Dylan lead them through the importance of keeping a clean space for growing fungi, and a lesson about the fungal family. From athlete’s foot to shitake mushrooms, all fungi play an important role in our lives (even though some are tastier than others).

Dylan

Dressed as a spore.

Our last workshop at the end of the CON was about Ohm’s law. Visitors build a simple circuit with a color changing LED and showed their creativity by building origami creatures. While we provided instructions to build a rocket ship, many people incorporated the simple circuit in cranes, flowers and even dragons! It was amazing to see the creativity that everyone brought to this panel.

If you didn’t catch us at CONvergence among the many other amazing panels going on (or you couldn’t get enough of us), Spark-Y offers full blown workshops that you can sign up for! 

Upcoming events and workshops:

More details and information on the Urban Agriculture Lab and upcoming workshops can be found right here.

Roosevelt Urban Farm: A Garden-to-Cafeteria Success Story

The following reflection was written by Rhiannon Dalrymple, Spark-Y Program Director, on the Roosevelt Urban Farm (RUF Squad) High School Program.

“I don’t have to scrutinize the data we have from those kids to know it was a success for them. I watched them grow, and I felt them shift”

— Rhiannon Dalrymple

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Looking back at the 2016-17 school year, I am so proud of what our small and feisty team has achieved. Across our 13 partner schools we have served more than 1,400 students in 18 custom-designed daily, weekly, and monthly programs throughout the year.. Nine other schools had one-off experiences with our team, either through educational tours of the Urban Ag Lab, at STEM days, or through build-and-workshop events. We installed what is probably the nation’s biggest classroom aquaponics systems at Edison high school, we piloted novel core and elective program offerings, and saw January 13th deemed Spark-Y & Northeast Middle School Sustainability Day in the city of Minneapolis by Mayor Betsy Hodges. It was a wild ride.

At this time of year we take stock of the adventure that was the past 9 months, and we quantify the impact of our work. Right now we are crunching through the data, analyzing responses to surveys and assessing our measurable success. But more than that, we are taking time during the quiet between the school year and the internship program to reflect on our personal experiences, our interactions with our youth, the challenges we faced and - of course - the fun that we have had. So much of the impact of our programming is seen in the slow and subtle changes that accumulate in our students through the year, those almost intangible shifts in attitude and behavior day-to-day which are hard to nail down and record. This year I had the joy of delivering the Roosevelt Urban Farm (RUF) program at Roosevelt High School. I don’t have to scrutinize the data we have from those kids to know it was a success for them. I watched them grow, and I felt them shift.

RUF Squad

Roosevelt Urban Farm Squad

This year the RUF squad grew and harvested an abundance of organic produce, 60lbs of which they sold directly to the cafeteria (other unmeasured amounts were prepared in the class to fuel the hungry farm squad or taken home  to their families to share the bounty). Roosevelt is a Minneapolis Public School garden-to-cafeteria success story. RUF students engage directly with cafeteria leaders and cooks, meeting about what should be grown, touring where the produce is prepared into the school lunches, and hand-delivering safely-harvested produce for weighing and preparation. The students earn between $1 and $2 a pound for their produce - which is below market price for locally grown and organic vegetables - but the experience of seeing their friends eat the food they harvested the day before is a powerful one. Excellent bragging rights! When their first check came through we had a financial meeting as a group to decide how best to use that hard-earned $58. Options included having a pizza party (initially a popular choice), investing in new seeds, setting up an experiment with crayfish in the sump tank of the aquaponics system, or buying a new school of tilapia fish. They voted on reinvesting their earnings into the farm, and we bought a school of fish that they themselves would never see grow enough to sell or to eat.

Indoor Aquaponics System

As the school year ended it was clear to me how far they had really come. For a class project in the fall, a few of the kids designed and led a school-wide recycling initiative in which students earned service learning credit for collecting and sorting recyclable waste from all classrooms. It continued weekly right up until the very last day of school, independent of my involvement. By the end of our year together it became clear how much they handled on their own - added water to the aquaponics system, fed the fish, pollinated the greenhouse crops, seeded, weeded and watered the garden themselves. Now that I’m taking care of it all myself until the internship begins, I can see how little I was actually doing by the end

….Well, I’m not doing it all myself - a RUF Squad fairy has been dropping by the farm during their summer holidays to water the greenhouse at nights! (I’m not sure which of you it is, but thank you!!)

The end of a school year can be such a bittersweet time. We are welcoming summer harvests, are looking excitedly to the next school year, and are in the final throws of preparing our jam-packed internship program. However, we are also celebrating and wrapping up programs which we have been living, breathing, and loving for the better part of a year, and are saying goodbye to many hundreds of fantastic youth. Me, I’m sad to say goodbye to a small group I have come to know, love and respect. Or, at least, goodbye for now… we know that we will see a number of these powerful young people in our internship, programs and job openings in the future!

For more information about Roosevelt High School visit their website, here.

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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!

DIY Bio Lab at Spark-Y

Today’s spotlight is on the DIY Bio lab at Spark-Y. Although a segment of the lab based support team for the last three years and a growing branch of the Spark-Y tree, not much has been published about our DIY Bio lab. It’s time to take a closer look at what we have to offer.

What is DIY Bio? 
Also known as Bio-hacking, DIY Bio is a movement of hobbyists aiming to increase accessibility to all types of biology, often focusing on molecular biology. At Spark-Y, this takes the form of making low-cost alternatives to expensive peaces of equipment. Some examples are our 3D printed pipettes, Light Bulb PCR machine, and in house assembled gel imager.

What is our lab like?
Our small, BioSafetyLevel1 lab is tucked into a corner of our office area at our Chicago Ave. headquarters. We focus heavily on biology and use our space to investigate, explore, and augment other branches of Spark-Y. Some projects that we have recently completed are STEM experiment kits for our educators to take with them to our programs. We are currently working on outfitting our test system with sensing and data logging capabilities.

Woah cool, how long has Spark-Y had a lab?
The first incarnation of the lab was made in the summer of 2013, and was made of donated cabinetry. The lab was re-made in it’s current location spring of 2016. Most of our equipment was either purchased when the first lab was made or donated.

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What can a lab like this do?
Although we have some limitations when it comes to safety (all organisms must be bio-safety level one) and chemical disposal (drain safe chemicals only), we are able to perform the basics of molecular biology such as DNA analysis. Much of our work is in the small electronics field, building equipment.

I like science! Can I work in the lab too?
YES! Our mission is to increase access and involvement in STEM disciplines – If you are a hobbyist and need a place to work on your science-y project, come hang out on our open lab nights! Contact destiny@spark-y.org or the MN DIY Bio group for more information.

If you are a minor and would like to do some hands on science, we will be offering workshops. Stay tuned!