 Good day, folks, and thanks for joining us. We're gonna have a discussion here today of utilizing hydroponic growing systems in a high school greenhouse and partnering with food service systems in the high school to provide an opportunity for students to learn hydroponic production, possibly operate a school-based enterprise and provide a healthy, fresh product directly into the food service or cafeteria program in the high school. We're gonna be highlighting a program today that has been in place for about a year now at Sterling High School, and our presenter, and she'll be talking about what they're doing there at Sterling High School is Cassie Kinney, and I will turn it over to you, Casey. Okay, thank you. So as Mike said, I'm Casey Anderson. I'm married now, so it's Anderson now. And I'm gonna talk to you guys a little bit about what we've been doing here at our school and some of the challenges that we've had to face and some ways that we've had to go about fixing those challenges to make that happen and be able to get this project rolling and have a year of success with it. And so we'll move to the next slide. I'll go on ahead and start talking about how we got this up and running. So what inspired me to create this partnership between myself and my program as well as the food service within our school was my advisory board chairman, Dr. Brent Young. He, him and I had been having some conversations about how we could go about utilizing our greenhouse. As you guys will see here in upcoming slides, our greenhouse is not set up ideally. We don't have water to the houses themselves, only water that we have is a one stick it inside of our head house and the greenhouses were built completely backwards. And so the head house is on the same wall as our cooling systems. And so we're not able to pool air through the cooling systems and utilize those to keep the greenhouse up and running and cool enough for the plants. And so we started bouncing around some ideas and he was talking about hydroponic systems, which is something that was completely new to me. I've never really utilized them very much prior to this. And so we started, he said that he would kind of help coach me along if I decided I wanted to do this. And so first things first, we went to NJC and he showed me their hydroponic system and what they've been doing in their program there and how easy it was to get up and started and get kids involved with that. And so I started thinking about it a lot more and realized that that was going to be an optimal way to utilize our greenhouse because I wouldn't have to worry about having a sprinkler system or anything in the greenhouse because I'd be able to fill up our tank a couple of times a week and then utilize that to water where we only have the one spigot. And then also by doing this, I was able to get students involved, not only in the building process, but also in other areas of the hydroponic system. And then finally, once it was up and running, was able to utilize students to harvest and plant and manage the hydroponic system. And the neat thing about starting up this program was kids seeing that that's what they were eating was the lettuce that we grew in the cafeteria. It really brought a lot of pride into our program which was something that I was really hoping because right now in our school and our community, there hasn't been a whole lot of pride and so this was something that I was hoping to help out with that. And it ended up doing a lot of good for that aspect. All right, let's go ahead and switch to the next slide. So how my plan came together, as I mentioned before, I was inspired by the NJC project. NJC, they not only have the lettuce hydroponic system but they also have a hydroponic system for vine crops as well. And it was kind of neat to be able to see how they were able to put this together and utilize it within their schools. And I wanted to try to model that. As I mentioned before, Dr. Young played a major role in getting this started. He also helped me select which hydroponic system would be best for our greenhouse and what we were wanting to produce the amount of lettuce and stuff that we're needing to produce to meet the needs of our school system. And so we chose the Crop King NFT 8-25 system and we're able to produce enough lettuce for our school with that system and even have some extra that gets sent over to some of the other schools in our district as well. From there, I purchased the system through my Perkins grants. Here at RE1, how we divvy out our Perkins money is we have to write a grant for what we're wanting. And then we are a committee select who gets the Perkins dollars for that semester, for that year, depending upon our grants. And so I was able to get the hydroponic system through the grant. And then my power structural and technical system students, they're the ones that actually built the hydroponic system and put it together instead of doing their normal plumbing activity through this past fall. Usually they do a sprinkler system and this year we changed up a little bit and they put the hydroponic system together. And then my food science class, they were the ones who created our food safety plan for harvesting and delivering the lettuce to the cafeteria to ensure that we are keeping a safe and clean product. And then my ag leadership and communications class, they created posters that we have all over our school and on our school website showing what we're doing with producing lunch for the school cafeteria. And so that played a big role in terms of boosting the pride of our school because students were coming into the cafeteria and seeing the posters and realizing that the lettuce that they were eating was being produced by some of their fellow students and those kids that had been growing and harvesting the lettuce and has been part of this, they took a lot of pride in their classmates knowing that they were the ones that were providing food for them. And then finally, I didn't put this on the slide but my ag science class, they are the ones that have been harvesting and planting and keeping track of what's been harvested and how much and all that good stuff. So it's been a community project within our program. It wasn't just one class that's been working on this. All right, let's go on ahead and move to the next slide. So major supporters, Dr. Young, as I mentioned already he was a major supporter. And then also Brian Caley who also works in the extension office here in town and he's the gentleman in the blue polo and the picture on the far left and on the center. Brian Caley played a big role in this project because he was in here in our classroom helping to get it set up correctly. He's the one that did a lot of the work at NJC and so he'd already had helped put together their system and so he helped us as well. And then also he helped us get started with growing the lettuce for the first few months while we were kind of getting our feet under us and learning how to take care of the hydroponic system. He took one of the steps out of our hands and helped kind of gradually get us going and him and the NJC kids, they started our lettuce plant for us for the first couple of months. And then once we got a system to start the seed then we started taking over that as well but it was kind of nice having that extra support so that we were only learning one new thing at a time and then gradually working our way into the whole process. And for me being a person who is not a, does not have a green thumb naturally, having this extra support and this guidance was really helpful for me as well as my students. And so that's one thing that I stress is if you don't have any experience in starting up a hydroponic system or starting anything new in a program is to seek out help. As you guys all know, ag teachers don't know every aspect of every part of the industry. And so it's hard to be an expert in everything. And so make sure that you guys are seeking out help if this is not an area of your expertise. Another thing I wanted to point out to you guys is in the picture in the middle, if you notice, as I mentioned before, our wall with the cooling system on it, there's the head house behind it. And so as I mentioned before, my situation was not ideal with our greenhouse. And so even if you don't have the perfect setup already, it don't let that scare you away from starting up a hydroponic system in your program. All right, let's go ahead and move to the next slide. So one of the challenges that we faced is food safety. So the first step that we started was we wanted to have a plan in place to make sure that we are harvesting and sending that food over to the cafeteria in a way that is going to minimize contaminants and make it a lot easier for the food service folks. And so I had my food science create a food safety plan, which my ag science class then had to follow pretty strictly. And then the next thing we did was we converted the head house into a sanitary harvesting room. So the nice thing about our head house that already had concrete floors, we had some tables and saw horses in there that were able to set the trays on and the kids were able to harvest the lettuce and then put them into these foldable crates that we purchased that the kitchen were able to put into their dishwasher and sanitize before bringing them back to us. And so being able to utilize that area and be able to harvest the lettuce in a place that is clean and is easy to keep clean because it was concreted floors made it a lot easier. The nice thing too about hydroponic systems is that the lettuce is being grown in a naturally clean space as well. You're not growing it on the ground. And so there's less opportunity for contamination and the fertilizer is in the water. You're not having to worry about using things like manure for fertilizer. So it just reduces a lot of potential for contamination anyways. And then once it's brought over to the cafeteria they do still wash it twice as per what their food service code, I guess is what you would call it required as well. All right, let's go ahead and move on to the next slide. So the lettuce use and costs. Right now we are harvesting, we were harvesting 24 heads of lettuce twice a week. And we were selling this for a dollar a head. Now in JC, they do sell theirs for $2 a head but our food service they could not keep up with that price. And so they were actually wanting to buy it at 50 cents a head but I was able to talk them up to a dollar. And so that's what we've done cost wise. All right, go ahead and switch to the next slide. Another thing that probably a lot of people would have on their minds is what do we do for during the summer? We actually shut down for the summer. As I mentioned before, we do not have adequate cooling in our greenhouse. And so if you keep anything plastic in there which the majority of the system is it will start to melt and warp. And so we don't keep anything in there during the summer. And then also obviously if it's too hot to keep anything plastic in there it's too hot to keep the plants going. And so we actually shut it down two weeks ago with our last harvest and we won't start it up again until school starts. Another reason too is where our greenhouses are located it's in a fenced in Walden area. And so it would be difficult to get kids to be able to come in and harvest unless I'm here every day. And because somebody would have to let them into the building and let them in through the shop to get to where our greenhouse is. And so I would have to find another teacher or staff member to let them in because I'm gone for case conferences, CBATA conferences. Also I'd try to take a week of vacation to go and see family out of town and stuff. And so really it's not, it just makes things a lot easier if we just shut down for the summer. Also we obviously our school isn't running during the summer and so we would have to find another buyer for it whether it may be send them over to NJC or sell at the farmer's market here in town. And it's just more work than it's worth at this moment. And then, but however we will start planting seedlings about 40 days before school starts or start seeding 40 days before school starts and get those seedlings going. And we'll do that in my classroom because it'll still be too hot in the greenhouse. And then a couple of weeks before school starts usually it's finally cool enough that we should be able to get the lettuce into the greenhouse and get it really growing by then. All right, let's go ahead and move to the next slide. So future plans. I would like to after we get this really under our belt I would like to try some of the vine crop hydroponic systems and maybe grow some cucumbers and tomatoes. And so that's something that I foresee happening in the next couple of years I'll put in another grant for Perkins Fund for vine crop hydroponic systems once we really feel like we have a good handle on the lettuce. And then also this is something that will be happening next year. The majority of our work this year was done in the classroom. And next year my plan is to turn this into a school-based SAE by modeling it more like a business. So I'll have kids that will be in charge of the financial aspect of it keeping records on the income and expenses. I'll have students that their job is solely harvesting and management. I'll also have students that their job is to advertise and get information out on what we're doing within our program. And so I'll be creating this over the summer some different jobs, checklists and that kind of stuff. If anyone's interested in those just shoot me an email at Anderson with an O-N-K-R-E, the number one valley schools.org. And once I have those completed I'll be happy to share those with you guys. Also, if you guys have any questions for me feel free to email me with that same email address and I'd be glad to answer those for you guys as well. So some last minute tips that I have for you guys. So as I mentioned before, don't let not having the perfect setup stop you from trying to do this. As I mentioned, we did not have an ideal greenhouse setup but we're still able to make it run. As you can see in that picture in the middle this is when we had lettuce up and growing in that picture in the middle there's a hose that's running from our head house. That's how we get our water to our water tank that has all the water and nutrients in it. And so we've had to make things work. Also make sure you take advantage of grants whether it's Perkins or other grant opportunities. Utilize people with expertise in this area. As I mentioned before, I don't have a green thumb and animal science gal. So this has been a adventure for me and a learning opportunity for me as well as my students. And also be patient and understand that your first year you're going to make mistakes and you will have a learning curve. We've had lost lettuce due to temperature control issues. We've had water control issues. Had a lot of powdery mildew. And so had to learn how to adapt and take care of each of these issues. And then also really from the get go make sure you set up a good accounting system for just making sure you're keeping track of how much lettuce you're harvesting and sending over to your cafeterias. That's extremely important to make sure that you're not being taken advantage of or anything like that. All right, that's all that I have for you guys. Okay, Cassie, thank you very much. And I apologize. I was looking at the screen and it has your maiden name there. But yes, I knew you changed your last name. So let's talk a little bit. While you were talking there, I realized I had some pictures of the NJC system. I've pulled those up. And let's see if we can get those on the screen if you would tell me, are there pictures up, Cassie? Yes, there are. Okay, this is a shot of what NJC has. Now, their greenhouse is quite a bit larger than Sterling high schools. And so they do have some more space, but you can see here that they're not using the frame system that was put into the Sterling greenhouse. They're actually sitting on top of their greenhouse benches and they just build a two by four frame that covers those benches. The system that this operates off of is made up of 25 of these white trays. The trays are eight foot long and the whole system will handle about 300 plants capacity. And you can see in this area right close to us that these are very close to harvest. Back over here in the background, you can see there's some plants there that are a couple of weeks away. And so they stagger based on what the demand is going to be from the marketplace. And so they are not wasting any other or any product at harvest time. Couple other pictures here. This is an in shot of it. You can see how simple it is. It's just a supply system. The pump sets down in the reservoir there. The supply comes down. The drip tubes go into one end of the tray. It goes through the tray then drops back into this large return pipe. Variation of the water is just based on the drop of the water back into the reservoir. You mentioned the vine crops. NJC is doing some vine crops. You can see here that they, this is kind of a Dutch bucket system, also from the same company that the trays are from. And you can see they're doing some cherry tomatoes. On the other side there, they're just starting some cucumbers. And this was in January. So they're getting good quality growth out of that and a good harvest for that. So the program that we've put together is from a company called Crop King. And they have various sizes of systems that what we are using and what Sterling has there and what NJC has is this nutrient flow system of eight foot trays, 25 foot trays. You can see there are some smaller systems. So if a person wanted to get started in a smaller in a less space and less commitment, they could do that. The program we've put together and we've written the language for career tech education programs. Cassie talks about the Perkins Grant. That is available only to career tech programs that are approved through our office here at the community college system. And so we drafted some language and we've provided this to our high school instructors that if they wanna drop this into their Perkins Grant, you don't have to do all the work that Sterling had to do to write their own grant. This has been a pre-approved. The amount for the system, we have it at $2,500. This includes not only the system, but also the seed, the fertilizer, everything that's needed to get it up and operating the first year. I think the system itself is around $1,600 and there's additional costs for some of the testing, some of the seed trays, and the other materials as needed. So this is a turnkey right here for $1,500. In addition to that, we feel that, because Sterling sits right there down the road from NJC and Dr. Young sits on their advisory committee, they have very easy access to professional development with schools all over the state that might be implementing a system like this. What we're proposing and we're adding to that grant application is a day and a half intensive professional development workshop that we would host there at the NJC campus, utilizing the expertise of Dr. Young and also the gentleman, I can't remember his name, but the gentleman from Extension, talking about not only- Oh, Brian. Pardon? Brian? Yeah, Brian, yeah. But not only how do you operate the system, how do you work with your food service or other groups or entities in your community? What are your harvesting practices, your accounting system, but also looking at beyond the school if a student wanted to go into business into low startup costs, hoop greenhouses, producing lettuce like this or producing a fresh produce crop that could be marketed in a community. In a lot of our rural communities, we really don't have good access to fresh produce. Even the grocery store struggled with it because of the quantities they would need to buy and having a fresh market for it. One of the things, and you mentioned that the difficulty of having students access to school greenhouse in the summertime makes it tough to do, this system is just simple enough that it feasibly could be moved out of the school greenhouse and if a group of students wanted to operate it during the summertime as their own business and develop their own marketplace, like you mentioned, a farmer's market, that could feasible to be done. They could almost rip the system from the school's, this trigger from the ag program, operate it during the summer and then when school starts up, they bring it back in. You can put the whole thing in the back of a pickup pretty easy and they build their own stand for itself. And so in this grant proposal, we've got the cost of the equipment, we've got the cost of a professional development. If a school wants to, they can also include the travel and cost to go to the professional development and sterling and because it's a Perkins grant, they could also include a couple of days of substitute teacher costs for covering classes when they're gone to the professional development. This information is available to our ag instructors. It sets on our Moodle group in the state resources and it is titled Perkins Language for State Projects. And it sets right, there's the state level resources and it's right at the bottom project language for Perkins grants. And so that's the document we just had open there. You can copy and paste that right into your grant application and we have pre-approved this through our Perkins coordinator here. And so there shouldn't be any problems with getting this approved to utilize your Perkins dollars for it. It's a good project. It's a good utilization of the greenhouse, especially in the off season. A lot of our greenhouses do bedding plant crops and which ties up in springtime, but you can come in, like you say, starting seeds about a month early. You can have this system up and running almost for the first day of lunch. And with the school-based enterprise opportunities for students to run a business out of the school, you can really provide a high quality work-based learning experience there. So we are encouraged to work with, live well on this and their communications with our food service directors. And if any food service directors are watching this video and you don't have an agriculture program there, but you have a science program or something, obviously you can't access the grant funds, but we'll be glad to work with you and get you connected to the system, the equipment, where it's ordered from and you would be more than welcome to join the professional development sessions and having the fall as well. So that's kind of what we've got. We're encouraged by this. It's, like Cassie said, it's pretty easy to run. You learn a lot from it and you make some mistakes and that's part of it, but it's a neat opportunity to actually have a production system up and producing fresh produce for our schools, especially out there in the rural areas where we're looking with small quantities that's difficult to order. So we appreciate your time. Thank you very much for you folks there up in Sterling and your time and expertise on that and being the guinea pig on this. So we hope you have a lot more of in the future. With that, just real quick, my name is Michael Wommachal and I work with the Community College System Office. I'm the Ag Program Director. And so I think we can probably add some emails here to the notes on this. So if you have any questions, be glad to answer any emails that you have. So thank you very much for your time and we will shut her down for here. Bye.