By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Brandon — Brandon Middle School students are on a mission to feed their fellow students.
As part of the new outdoor education elective, teacher Jeb Laux and his students have started growing lettuce in two new hydroponics growing machines.
“We’re going to basically be growing about half the lettuce that our cafeteria uses every month in our classroom,” said Laux. “We’re going to grow it here and take it right down to the cafeteria.”
The estimated monthly harvest is about 50 pounds of lettuce, and the BMS cafeteria uses about 100 lbs of lettuce monthly for salads, tacos, burgers and more.
“The students are excited about it,” said Laux. “We test the water every other day to check the pH and the nutrient levels. We built one of the farms and the kids built the second one.”
Hydroponic planters differ from regular planters in that they don’t use soil. The plants grow only in water with LED lights that simulate sunlight. Nutrients are added to the water to replace the nutrients from soil.
“It doesn’t use land space up,” he said. “It’s 98% less land. And the water keeps cycling through, so you don’t lose it through the soil. We put in 25-30 gallons to start and we haven’t had to add any water in the last two weeks.”
The elective lasts for one semester, and students in the spring will also start a garden outside of the middle school.