Engineering a Hydroponic System to Feed a Class!
A full-scale model of a student’s hydroponic design.Copyright 2021 University of Pittsburgh RET
The world population will reach 10 billion by the year 2050. As the number of people increase, so does the demand for proper housing and food. Since both demands require land, competition between the two creates a land scarcity. New methods of farming need to be created to alleviate the land scarcity and to increase the current food production. Hydroponics has the potential to reduce land usage and to keep up with the demands of the growing population. In this activity, students will explore what it means to brainstorm and sketch potential models for a hydroponics system for their school. They will explore the usefulness of each prototype and work as a team to come up with a solution to this problem and make sense of the tools engineers use to help mitigate land and water scarcity problems.
Engineers make decisions or influence decisions that impact daily life to what products we use, what products we need and even what we buy at the grocery store. Civil engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science will be used as students address food access and availability facing the world’s increasing population and decreasing lands for traditional farming.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Predict how human population growth will impact farming and food production for the next generation.
- Investigate and describe existing alternatives to traditional farming.
- Design and build a prototype that may solve the increased demand for food using limited land or space.
- Evaluate the design and iterate based on test results.