“SARC VILLAGE”: HANDS-ON LEARNING AND RESEARCH AT GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY’S SUSTAINABLE AQUAPONICS RESEARCH CENTER

Smell it, plant it, clean it! Our student assistants get dirty learning about aquaponics. Hands-on experience in real systems is a tried-and-true method of engaging new learners with information. Dozens of curious students (K-12, undergraduate, and graduate) and community members learn about aquaponics at the Sustainable Aquaponics Research Center on the Armstrong Campus of Georgia Southern University every year. Even students who never set foot in the greenhouse connect with their environment more strongly when they find out "SARC Salad" is on the menu at our campus Eagle Dining facilities.

Interdisciplinary collaborations and creative undergraduate research projects are becoming the status-quo at our new facility, initially funded by the FORAM Foundation in 2016. Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Environmental Science, Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, Business, Marketing - each of these disciplines can be connected to aquaponics. Our research students, interns, and employees learn a diverse skillset that they take back into the classroom and out into the world when they graduate.

Research topics for 2019-2020 include: nutrient flow, bioremediation, optimizing basil biomass production, antioxidant production in basil, aeration of hydroponic beds, heat tolerance, fungal diseases, black soldier fly larvae, multitrophic systems, incorporation of algal turf scrubbers, local ecotypes of Spartina alterniflora, marsh restoration, and soil amendments.

We find ways for our students to get into research up to their elbows (sometimes literally), and they love it.