Reasons Teachers want towers in their classrooms
1. Engage your class with a hands-on, project-based learning experience that can improve school attendance and student engagement.
Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively working on real-world projects. The projects are most successful when they are personally meaningful to the students, when the students make connections to their daily lives.
Some examples of project-based learning are:
Plant a School Garden. A school garden is a great opportunity for students of all ages to gain hands-on knowledge about growing food. Growing plants can be used in almost all areas of learning. In a science class, students can measure leaf growth, make adjustments to the ph of the water and work on math word problems around the dollar value of the plants.
Develop a Business Idea. Gardens can be used to develop a business by selling the plants to other students, parents and teachers. Some schools have developed a business plan that incorporates an active “farmers market” on a regular basis. Depending on the age of the class, they can even construct a storefront created with cardboard or lumber.
2. Grow where the learning happens.
Because you can move the tower from a classroom, greenhouse, or laboratory to somewhere else, it creates a very flexible system. For example, a science teacher without a dedicated science classroom would be able to move the tower to different rooms during the day.
Maintaining towers and harvesting at West Wilson Middle School in Wilson County, TN.
LED indoor grow lights allows you to garden indoors all school year long, which means bodies (and minds) don’t have to leave your learning environment. With grow lights, the school garden does not need to be utilized only in the warm summer months.
3. Eliminate common growing pains.
Our aeroponic farming systems lower the likelihood of bugs and don’t use soil (so, no messy students!). When compared to soil gardening, tower gardens increase yields by as much as 30% while only using 10% of the water and space.
4. Elevate diets as well as minds.
An urban farm in the Bronx with assistance from the Green Bronx Machine.
As students learn about the benefits of healthy eating, they also learn about saving money by growing some of their own food. The average American spends $45.25 per person on fruits and vegetables every month.
The students can help to make a positive impact on their family finances by helping their families grow their own produce. They learn that growing your own food at home gives you complete control over what and how much food ends up in your fridge or pantry each month, and that less produce has to be thrown away!
5. Access to our currated and custom lesson plans.
