Welcome to the final GROW blog post written by me, Christopher. It’s been an awesome summer being a Youth Exploring Science teen working with the GROW team, and I’ve learned so much throughout this whole experience. But before the final goodbye, there’s a lot to recap about what happened this summer with the greenhouse. It… Continue reading
When we think of animals and ecosystems, we often think of vast savannas, rushing rivers or lush jungles. For many people, the ecosystem is a giant place where multitudes of plants, animals and other organisms live. But sometimes, an ecosystem can be very small, with much of the action taking place on just a few… Continue reading
During our visit with the brothers at VAST Produce, our tour guide, John, told us something very interesting about how he saw hydroponics and aquaponics advancing in the future. He said it was a “chicken and the egg situation” because he believed that to find major technological breakthroughs that would open the industry to more… Continue reading
The hydroponic and aquaponic systems we have at the Science Center are great demonstrations, but in terms of size and complexity, they’re actually pretty small compared to what you’ll find with industry professionals. Luckily for us, we recently had the amazing opportunity to tour a larger-scale hydroponic setup. Over the next few blog posts, we’ll… Continue reading
While we patiently wait for the pests to make their next move, it’s important to talk about what exactly is in our greenhouse and how that environment affects how and what we grow. It’s time to explore the unique and wonderful world of aquaponic farming. When visitors come to the greenhouse, we like to ask… Continue reading
Shortly after writing the last blog post, we replanted in our deep-water culture with seedlings we started in soil. With the newly introduced seedlings, we’re diligently watching for any signs of new infestations. We laid out new sticky traps to keep an eye on the insect populations but haven’t seen any major changes from last… Continue reading
It’s been two weeks since we started our pest-control adventure in the greenhouse, and since then we’ve made a lot of fascinating discoveries. We laid out sticky traps to survey the different kinds of insects living in the greenhouse, and now we’ve been taking the traps back to our exhibit microscope to take a closer… Continue reading
Today we meet the aphids! Aphids are tiny (and I mean really tiny, sometimes only a little larger than a grain of sand) insects that feed on the sap of plants. Despite the fact that they are problematic to farmers everywhere, aphids are very unique insects. There are more than 5,000 species in the aphidoidea… Continue reading
You might remember from our last GROW blog post that the GROW team is hosting a teen from the Youth Exploring Science (YES) program over the summer. That would be me! My name is Christopher, and I’m going to be helping around the GROW gallery (mostly at the greenhouse) as well as writing blog posts… Continue reading
Have you ever visited the GROW gallery and wondered, “When will the aquaponics greenhouse ever be open?!” Well, you’re in luck! Thanks to safety improvements made by our exhibits department, the greenhouse is now open for self-guided exploration during the Science Center’s normal operating hours. We were able to creatively reuse material from the recently… Continue reading
