In partnership with Minnesota Sea Grant and the North Central Regional Aquaculture Center, (NCRAC), Spark-Y Interns developed and filmed two instructional videos relating to tilapia - a popular fish used in aquaponic systems.
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Summer Internship
The following blog post was contributed by
established education blogger, Alyssa Abel.
In today’s changing environmental climate, society needs eco-innovation and a sustainable focus more than ever before. Social movements and innovative initiatives are one way to push environmentalism to the forefront of our world, but we have an even better tool at our fingertips — teaching students how to live sustainably.
Today’s educators have a crucial responsibility in terms of sustainability education. It’s essential to raise the next generation into eco-conscious, self-sufficient world citizens who understand the immediacy of environmental responsibility. Youth programs like Spark-Y are embracing hands-on environmental education — and more need to follow.
Sustainability education encompasses all school subjects and extends far beyond the classroom. It gives students real-world skills they can use to improve the planet. It provides today’s children with the self-sufficiency they need for tomorrow. It offers them a deeply engraved understanding of why the environment is important.
Here’s what sustainability education teaches students — and why educational environments should make it a priority.
1. Interdependence Between Humans and the Environment
The environment provides our nourishment, sustenance and shelter, giving us everything we need to survive — and yet its part in human lives is increasingly ignored.
Trees provide lumber, food sources and oxygen, and they support various ecosystems in addition to humans. The water cycle would fall to disruption without them, causing extremes like droughts and massive flooding. And yet forests have declined by 32% since the rise of the industrial era, with 15 billion cut down every year. Deforestation also accounts for 13% of global fossil fuel emissions.
The ocean also makes our survival possible by regulating weather patterns and producing more than 50% of our planet's oxygen. But it has become increasingly polluted with plastic, oil and toxins, killing off the marine life keeping the world afloat.
While modern society too often strays from nature, humanity and the environment are inextricably intertwined — and to prevent further carelessness and damage to our ecosystem, it’s important to show students that. Teaching theoretical environmental science might be a start, but giving children the chance to experience the concept firsthand is infinitely more effective.
Through sustainability programs like Spark-Y’s Urban Agriculture Lab and school partnership programs, students have the hands-on opportunity to explore how humans and the environment sustain each other. Operations Director Caitlin Barnhart explains how working directly with an edible garden space allows youth to “harvest produce, explore the edible landscape, and often have their very first experience with home-grown food.” This kind of firsthand experience allows students to make a physical, profound connection between the environment and their way of life.
Barnhart with her 2019 Summer Interns
2. The Balance Between Environment and Society
Teaching adolescents how to identify environmentally friendly companies — and develop their own sustainable business endeavors — can lead to a more eco-friendly societal future. Consumers of decades past often didn't know how business and production affected the Earth, but that's changing fast.
Sustainability affects the economy as much as it does ecosystems. In turn, modern society has a marked impact on the environment. When it comes to building a better, greener future, business practices are the place to start — which makes sustainability-focused business education like Spark-Y’s LEEF classes (Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Future) especially important.
Spark-Y Lead Educator, Sarah Pilato
As sustainability educator Sarah Pilato says, hands-on environmental education encourages students to “explore the real world…outside of their classroom and how they as individuals can have an impact on it.” Programs like these teach current students and future leaders the three pillars of ESG — environment, society and governance — so they learn how to balance and approach them in their own futures.
Already, millennial and generation Z consumers are more willing to spend on eco-friendly products. Three-quarters of millennials have changed their buying habits, looking for sustainable products to support the environment. By offering current youth the opportunity to develop an understanding of sustainable entrepreneurial and agricultural practices, educators can make the upcoming generation even more eco-actionable.
3. Sustainable Life Skills
Environmental programs like agriculture labs and sustainable projects encourage students to re-think their relationship with the environment and develop eco-friendly skills and habits for their futures. Kids will learn to grow their own food, conserve resources and choose sustainable products — but early sustainable education can also have a profound impact on their life pathways.
Many colleges are now offering sustainability degrees and majors in related fields. Students who pursue green majors seek careers as biologists, environmental scientists, researchers and much more. Agriculture, energy and manufacturing are popular fields for sustainability, as they are always looking to integrate eco-friendly processes. Giving kids a head start with early sustainable education will do more than instill sustainable life skills — it may also help prepare them for successful careers.
With an interest and career path in environmental studies, students can open green businesses, join eco-friendly companies or influence existing organizations to revise their current strategies. Sustainable initiatives like Spark-Y’s project-based internships develop leadership abilities, stress the value in collaboration, enhance communication skills and drive sustainable thinking — potentially inspiring students to pursue sustainable careers of their own.
Images: Spark-Y Microgreens grown by youth for sale to local co-ops, restaurants and CSAs. Youth designed and built the timber-frame aqauponic growing tower.
4. Respect for the Planet
Earth is the only home the next generation has — and learning more about it is essential to keeping it alive.
Respect for our planet means learning its history, functions and what it needs to prosper. What children learn in school shapes them for the rest of their lives. Starting early with sustainable education teaches kids why the environment is important, how it should be treated, and how they play a crucial role in the future of its existence.
Increased respect for the planet means less littering, polluting and wasting of resources. It means more sustainable habits and efforts to conserve resources. More than anything, it means a mindset rooted in commitments to environmental change — a mindset that is cultivated and solidified early on.
5. Future Preparation and Adaptation
Today's planet won't be the same only decades from now. Predictions don’t bode well, but education can both prepare students for future changes and give them the tools to prevent further damage. If teachers, professors and parents educate their students now, we'll give them the ability to survive in an unknown future landscape. More importantly, today’s students may go on to become future scientists, researchers and activists who will work to protect our resources.
Environmental education equips students to navigate a changing environment with the proper knowledge of self-sufficiency, science and conservation.
Creating a Better Future
Before their involvement in a Spark-Y program, only 41% of students believed they had the power to affect change. After their experiences with hands-on environmental education, 94% believed they could change the world. Wouldn’t it be something to see that initiative reflected in schools and programs across the nation?
The world is changing — and with it, we need to change our approach to the world. By emphasizing environmental themes and sustainability education in schools, we can do more than give the next generation the tools they need to take on environmental change — we can give them a better future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alyssa Abel is an established education blogger with a special interest in new learning methodologies. Read more of her work for students and educators of all levels on Syllabusy.
This Post was written by Jared Miller and Hani Abukar,
Spark-Y’s summer interns working on the Lube-Tech project.
A big question in sustainable living today is exploring and creating renewable forms of energy so as to maintain our world and make a better environment for future generations. Taking a central role in that subject is the use of fossil fuels in creating energy and in various other fields, in this case the creation of lubricants for the smooth running of engines of various sizes.
Earlier this year, Spark-Y began a collaboration with Lube-Tech, a large manufacturer of oils and lubricants (amongst other business units) to explore the future of biolubricants. What is a biolubricant, you may ask? Well, a biolubricant is essentially a lubricant made from plant based oils such as sunflower or canola oil as opposed to the typical petroleum. It is also known as a bio-based lubricant and is used to a small degree in companies such as Lube-Tech.
Lube-Tech approached Spark-Y with the mission of sounding out the current biolubricants market: what else is there, how viable are these options, who supplies them, and what biolubricants are currently being researched for potential future uses? We are excited to work on this project for Lube-Tech, as the path to a sustainable society necessitates that not only individuals, but groups and corporations take steps towards using renewable resources in their production, and we are very excited that Lube-Tech has tasked us with the mission of taking these first few steps for them.
In addition to the effect that this project will have on helping Lube-Tech to understand and potentially expand into the field of biolubricants, We feel that this project will become a cornerstone of experience for our futures, both as stewards of a sustainable world and as young entrepreneurs entering the workforce, as the aspects of the project involving market research and creating a consulting-style report will prove to be valuable skills for our future career paths. Though we are just starting out on our project, we both feel that this experience has already begun to shape our views on business, sustainability, and entrepreneurship.
Youth Empowerment. This is our mission as an organization and also a directive that shapes our organization - from the curriculum we deliver in our school programs and the real-world approach we take in our summer internship program, to the opportunities for community outreach and youth employment we provide through Urban Agriculture Lab. These three branches of our organization work systemically to positively impact Twin Cities youth, providing multiple pathways for empowerment and growth both within and beyond our organization.
Perhaps this is why so many of our Spark-Y youth begin in our school programs, graduate from our summer internship program, and go on to gain employment at Spark-Y or other organizations as a result of their experiences.
As an organization we are always asking ourselves the same question: How do we measure youth empowerment?
Can it be measured by student grades in our school programs?
Or by the dollar value of projects completed in our summer internship?
If you ask one of our Sustainability Educators, they might tell you other stories of empowerment:
The transformation of disengaged students who rally to save a classroom fish, complete an assignment for the first time in their classroom history, or join an elective leadership opportunity (our elementary Captains program).
The marvel of watching student-led creations come to life, as young people use STEM-based learning and utilize power tools to design, build, and cultivate their own sustainable systems.
Youth interns sharing their summer internship successes on stage in front of our Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Frey - then going on to secure jobs and admittance to higher education programs as a result of their experiences.
As we continue to share these meaningful stories of youth empowerment on our blog, Facebook, and Instagram we also want to share the other side of how we measure youth empowerment, through our Spark-Y Impact Report. This report is designed to help us as an organization measure our successes, focus our future efforts, and paint a broader picture for our supporters (that’s you!) the value of your investment in our organization.
Together, we are empowering more Twin Cities youth than ever before.
2017-2018 IMPACT REPORT
Total Youth Served in 2017/18: 1,926
School Programs:
This branch of Spark-Y provides hands-on education, rooted in sustainability and entrepreneurship to Twin Cities youth in school classrooms, workshops, one-time events, and customized programming.
In 2017/18 Spark-Y provided curriculum for:
13 schools
18 regularly occurring school programs or 2,799 class periods and 1,334 youth regularly served
Workshops and one-time events impacting 401 youth and 191 adults
Reaching a total of 1,735 youth
Within our school programs, youth engaged in hands-on curriculum that resulted in:
10 permanent in-school aquaponics systems
35 mini-aquaponics systems
4 permanent vermicompost systems
Did you know?
In 2017-2018 Spark-Y doubled the number of permanent aquaponics systems built in the previous year.
Another marker of impact in 2017-18 was our expanded reach and lasting impact within of our partnerships with Twin Cities Schools:
Addition of Edison High School LEAF (Leadership Education Agriculture Future) program - a diploma certification with Spark-Y programming spanning 5 class offerings.
Our third year of programming at Roosevelt High School, including our urban farm and EASY Pro (Edible Schoolyard Professional) programs.
Our seventh year at School of Environmental Studies.
We also celebrated our fifth year at Southside Family Charter.
Fast Fact:
After participating in a Spark-Y school program, 62% of youth reported knowing ways they can live more sustainably.
Spark-Y continued to expand interpersonal partnerships:
2 school interns from a continued partnership with HECUA program (non-profit with a focus on social justice, human rights and sustainability).
2 AmeriCorps members on staff.
Urban Agriculture Lab (UAL)
The second branch of Spark-Y, the Urban Agriculture Lab, provides support to our school programs through sustainable systems research, facilitation of youth classroom builds, and ongoing maintenance to in-classroom systems. The UAL operates in indoor production facility, providing a sustainable revenue model for the organization and a youth job pathway. Lastly, the UAL is home to our DIY Bio Lab, equipping our classrooms with new, innovative science projects and providing workshops and outreach throughout the Twin Cities.
In 2017/18 the Urban Ag Lab:
Reached 167 youth and 175 adults through tours.
Impacted 199 youth with hands-on STEM workshops, in a new partnership with Hennepin County Libraries.
Provided a work-based learning internship with 3 Edison students, complete with class credits and stipends.
Employed 1 youth apprentice.
Impacted 23 youth at our second year in attendance as speakers at CONvergence.
Hosted 47 volunteers.
Fast Fact:
Spark-Y moved office headquarters in August of 2018, moving their 1,300 square foot indoor aquaponics system to construct a timber-frame, vertical growing system at their new offices in Northeast Minneapolis.
Additionally, the Urban Ag Lab participated in the following:
Hosted a Spring Plant sale, attracting hundreds of visitors.
Featured exhibitor at the Minnesota State Fair, Common Table.
A stop on the 2018 Farm Tour.
Summer Internship
The third branch of our organization, the Summer Internship Program, a sustainability bootcamp where young people gain real-world experience through hands-on projects with our Twin Cities partners.
In 2018 Spark-Y provided 41 paid internship positions for our youth, completing:
Design and build of a two-ton timber frame aquaponics system
A rain garden
Indoor aquaponics system
Garden shed
2018 interns receiving paid stipends, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, in front of a youth-built timber frame aquaponics system at the Spark-Y Open House.
Looking ahead:
With a nod to this last year’s accomplishments, we also look forward to focusing our efforts in key areas of growth to create even more impact in the year to come.
This includes:
Creating even more ways to measure our impact, including, entrance / exit surveys and methods of qualitative data collection.
Expanding our community workshop offerings to build interest and curiosity in new communities.
Thinking of new and innovative ways to fund and expand into new school partnerships, including the ten schools on our current wait list.
Increasing our employment pathways.
Adding professional certifications to our work based learning programs.
We are very excited to share this information with you. We appreciate your continued support of our organization and other Twin Cities organizations that are actively uplifting the lives of youth all around us. We could not do this work without you. We thank all of our volunteers, staff, Board, fiscal contributors, partners, and cheerleaders for your ongoing support.
Let’s keep building towards empowering our youth, so that they can go on to empower their families, schools, and our greater community!
A Special Thanks:
In the last month we have received in-kind support of our organization from the Joan Brick McHugh memorial. These donations were given to honor her memory, and for that, we are sincerely grateful. We would also like to recognize Spark-Y Founder, Mary Helen Franze, for her ten years of service on our Board of Directors and for choosing Spark-Y to honor her mother's memory.