Anthony Catalan and Krista Frelinger

Catalan’s and Frelinger’s innovative teaching idea, “Aquaponics STEM Projects,” agriculture students will install an aquaculture pond and hydroponic lab next to the school's working farm. Students will create the ponds, raise fish to farm, collect waste to feed plants in the hydroponic lab, and sample pH data in the school laboratory. The aquaponics project will be integrated with the Common Core and Next Generation curriculum, allowing the students to learn core chemistry, biology and math through an innovative, hands-on project that they have designed and built on their own. The primary goals are to make STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning exciting and attainable for students — many of whom are the children of agricultural field workers — and to prepare them for the well-paying STEM and agriculture science careers of the future.