We are delighted to share a blog written by student Faria, from Tenby International School Ipoh, who is part of team “The Chosen Ones” delivering a Global Goals project for the 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
We gave back to the planet and it truly was a very fulfilling experience.
Project Summary
In the current climate, there are several issues our team identified and wanted to tackle with our project! Firstly, due to global warming, fresh water is becoming a scarcity and, in our region 70% of the water is used by the agriculture sector (often ineffectively). Furthermore, we noticed that habitats of at-risk wildlife were being destroyed and used for field farming, our region also suffers from air pollution (propelled by the lack of greenery) and, lastly, the agriculture sector produces 20 billion tons of food waste yearly (much still usable), despite thousands of people going hungry.
To take action, we carried out extensive research and realised that hydroponic farming was the future; saves 90% of water, efficiently uses space and nutrients, produces 100 times the normal yield and decreases carbon footprint. So, we built our own small-scale hydroponic system in the classroom out of recycled materials and we created a social media movement, where we raise awareness of the issue, educate and share our progress in hopes of inspiring others to join the journey and fight for mother Earth.
The Journey
We built up on our responsibility and time management skills. This is because we needed to make sure we attend each meeting and make sure we made time during our lunch times to do daily checks on our plants and change the water regularly. We also built up on our problem solving skills. This is because during the process of creating a hydroponics system and planting the plants, we had to take into account some unexpected factors and find a way to solve the problem or find alternative ways on how to carry out our project. During the process of dividing our members based on their respective skills, we learnt of each other’s skills and how we can help each other with our weaknesses. Currently, the biggest challenge is planting. We are taking this challenge as a learning process as we meticulously iterate and improve our hydroponics setup and our methodology.
The Next Chapter
We would definitely expand our reach of the audience by raising awareness about hydroponics farming in our school community. By collaborating with a larger organisation such as the Interact Club or Eco-Committee of our school, we plan to conduct talks about the importance of sustainability and hydroponics farming, and conduct trips to Hydroponic farms nearby as well. Furthermore, we plan to expand the use of hydroponics in the school and set up multiple systems to increase the production of plants that are grown using hydroponics. Moreover, we would like to initiate online and physical campaigns, in order to build a digital footprint or start fundraisers to help with the Sustainable Development Goals that we have chosen.
