Benefits for Children
Week 1
Ready to Start in Your Classroom?
- Increases children's interest in eating fresh fruits and vegetables.
- The produce from the tower garden is a healthy alternative to fast food
- Children can become active in learning the process of how plants are grown
Monmouth Conservation Foundation is donating 5 Tower Gardens to Middle Schools in Monmouth County in the 2018/2018 school year.
Contact Amanda at abrockwell@monmouthconservation.org to learn more and apply today!
Benefits
Why Tower Gardens?
- Students have access to fresh food
- According to NASA research, the time to grow plants in the tower is cut in half.
- Recycles 100% of the nutrients and water, plants therefore use less than 10% of both the water and the land that are commonly used in conventional or organic farming.
Week 2
How Aeroponic Towers Work
- Sustainability: Aeroponic growing uses far less natural resource than traditional agriculture. It also allows growing in places people have never used before...like in a city, on a rooftop, or in a basement, allowing for creative reuse of space and resources.
- Nutrition: Fresh food takes better! Kids who don't like vegetables often enjoy eating the fresh, bright green piece of lettuce that they grew themselves.
- Organics: Produce is grown without the use of harmful pesticides and chemicals. This provides an opportunity for dialogue about what organic means and health impacts in the classroom.
Constructing the Tower
- From there, the nutrient solution drips through the central “tower” using a special device that evenly distributes the nutrient solution over the exposed plant roots.
- As the solution goes down the tower, the nutrient solution feeds the plants’ roots and becomes highly oxygenated as the solution goes back down to the reservoir.
- Base
- 5 tower tiers each consisting of 4 pod holders
- Metal rods placed to keep structure together to assemble the five separate tiers.
- Internal Tubing
- Plug which plugs into a timer
Planting the Seeds
Week 3
Aeroponic STEM Project
- Take the pods and soak in purified or distilled water overnight.
- Take the pods out and set them in a tray.
- Plant the lettuce seeds in the center of the pods
- Sprinkle vermiculite over the pods
- Sprinkle water over the rock wool
- Add water to tray ( a little under halfway of pods) and maintain this water level
- Set the tray in sunlight
- Wait until the seeds sprout
- Place pods in the pod holders on the tower
- Testing the growth rate of lettuce plants
- Your class will plant 20 pods
- The plants will take about 5 weeks before they were ready to harvest.
How Aeroponic Tower Works
Week 4
- The aeroponic garden has a 20 gallon water reservoir at its base.
- This reservoir stores the nutrient solution combined with water.
- Inside the reservoir is a small, low wattage submersible pump.
- The pump pushes the nutrient solution up through a small central hose, all the way to the top of the Tower Garden.
Materials Used
- JuicePlus vertical aeroponic tower garden
- Lettuce seeds
- 20 rock wool plant pods
- Water pump, timer and drain tube
- Tower Tonic Mineral Blend plant food (1 qt each A and B)
- pH test kit and 1 bottle each of pH+ and pH
- Ruler
- Grow lights
- Tomato cage
Note: All materials will be donated by Monmouth Conservation Foundation
Week 5
About Aeroponics
Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil.
Aeroponic and STEM Education
Kids for Conservation - Tower Gardens