This $495,000 Project Grant awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program aims to train K-14 educators in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and healthy eating. The overarching goal is to enable these educators to integrate CEA and healthy hydroponic gardening into their classrooms. The award will fund a three-day workshop where participants will learn the foundations of CEA, visit a hydroponic farm, and cook with locally-grown produce. Afterwards, participants will develop CEA curricula with a healthy eating component for implementation in their classrooms. The project will also provide hydroponic grow kits and grow pods equipped with environmental controls for use in the classrooms. By combining CEA training with healthy eating education, this project seeks to promote a pathway from CEA to improved food security and healthy diets, particularly in underserved food desert communities.
Generated 2/25/25, 2:57 AM