[Food] Gardening, Soils, and The Production of Life

In this term’s STEAM class, we have been learning about, as is the name, food! This first unit has been all about gardening. The first thing we learned about was ecosystems and ecology. We learned about what biotic and abiotic mean, and some examples of ecosystems right beside us like city parks, our backyards, and our houses themselves! We next learned about the Nitrogen cycle, how that helps plants grow, and how farmers have been using that to their advantage. We also had the chance to go on a class trip to Plant Chicago, where our instructor there, Rock, showed us their aquaponics system and how anyone at all can grow plants. This lesson was also supported by a Ted Talk we watched by Ron Finley, who talked about how anyone can turn $1 of seeds into $75 of food. Throughout the whole unit, we have also been talking about self-proclaimed Natural Farmer Fukuoka. He developed a way of farming that doesn’t rely on modern inventions like chemical fertilizers or pesticides. There are four principles, No Cultivation, or no massively displacing the soil, the second is No Chemical Fertilizer Or Prepared Compost, fairly self-explanatory, the third is No Weeding By Tillage Or Herbicides, basically only weed what you can by hand, don't use any mass weed killing methods. The final principle is No Dependence On Chemicals, so basically don’t make it so your plants will only survive by using chemicals, like if you have a pest problem. I agree with all of these except one little thing, why no compost? It would seem to me it falls under natural guidelines pretty well, it’s not industrialized, and it is super easy to do, so why not? 

For this unit’s final product, we have decided to do a little experiment on some plants. We took three beans with three different containers. We planted them in three different soils, one from a Home Depot, and two from the random dirt outside. The only difference between those two is with one we added some chemical fertilizer. One of the purposes of this experiment is to see whether or not natural farming is actually just as good as industrial farming. Another purpose is to teach us about gardening and trying to keep plants alive, and a final one is just to make the earth a little bit greener. If I had some more resources and time, I would be interested in planting Beans, Broccoli, and Carrots because I like all of those things and so does my rabbit. The thing about all of these plants is that they all help each other grow, so it would be more efficient!

 Container 1: Bottle

Area: 1.752*½*π=1.53125π=4.808125 ~4.8in^2

Volume: 5*1.752*π=8.76π=27.5064=~27.5in^3

Container 2: Box

Area: 6*2.75=16.5 in^2

Volume:7.25*6*2.75=119.62500 in^3

Container 3: Jar

Area: 1.5*3.14=4.71 in2

Volume: 1.5*3.14*4.75=22.3725 in3