Education for sustainability and food literacy: Assessing Opportunities and challenges for using aquaponics among young people at School

  • Bent Egberg Mikkelsen (Lecturer)

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalks and presentations in private or public companies

Description

Abstract: New directions for sustainable farming and diets are urgently needed. Aquaponics claims to be one of the novel technologies that have the potential to address the challenge. However, adequate understanding, application and maintenance of the system is required. As is consumer acceptance for this technology. The Blue Green Urban food program investigates how aquaponics can be effectively utilized for teaching science as well as sustainable diets skills in primary school. The study gathered data from three (N=3) independent qualitative interviews from: a teacher, an entrepreneur and a local aquaponics bio-farmer. The data analysis procedure was inspired by the Zukunft Werkstatt method by Jungk & Müllert (1987). Perceived potentials found included the wide range of applications of AP in the subjects: biology, math, science as well as the future prospect of decreased pollution and efficient resource usage. Also the flexibility of the system to be set up such on rooftops and the fish and plants utility was pointed to as strengths. Perceived potential limitations pointed to included time constraints as well as possible conflicts with curricula and practical day2day maintenance:
Period19 Apr 2017
Held atUniversity of Murcia, Spain
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • aquaponics
  • urban farming
  • urban gardening
  • FoodScape Lab
  • FoodScape Lab Studies