Throughout the years, The Hydrofarm has assisted with learning both in the classroom and on the farm. We have been involved with the Harford County North Harford Agricultural Program, The Aberdeen Highschool SMA (science and math academy), local elementary schools, and the HCPS Harford Glen. There have been many student driven projects to date to include:

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- A geodesic Dome (Mars habitat unit). 4 students from the SMA built a geodesic dome completely out of PVC and zip ties. The goal: make a habitat unit capable of growing food, environmental controlled, heated using compost and organic waste, automate it, make an app to control it, then be able to manage it remotely as if they were still "mission control" on earth.

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- Building sustainable Hydroponic Systems. This included research on the various ways to grow plants without the use of any soil, both with natural or artificial lighting, and comparison/contrasting to its soil counterparts

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- The Protein Farm. One student took on the problem of how to create a sustainable protein source out of thin air, and that she did! Utilizing the black soldier fly, she was able to create a self contained  enclosure where waste organic mater went in, and soldier fly larvae would come out. It turns out, they are a extremely tightly packed protein morsel for animals (or possibly people?), create an amazing organic fertilizer that people call black gold, and other great benefits!

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- The Hatchery. Many students took home incubators and examined the entire development cycle of our birds such as chickens ducks and quail. one student in particular took on the genetic project where they were able to isolate a genetic trait to be bred in to the line. Once these chicks have hatched, special considerations and care were discussed and learned.

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- Many other projects on the horizon!!!!!

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(Pictured above) Meet Bethany, a student from the HCPS Agricultural program. She proposed an experiment to evaluate the effects of oxygen in hydroponic lettuce production. Even though we have created this experiment in small containers, the results may have a big impact on the future of our farm. Thanks for the teachers at North Harford High School we might be forming our own research and development team!