Vertical Farming Education - Discover the water footprint of food by cultivating in your school
Vertical Farming Education is an Italian Onlus born to raise awareness on the environmental impact of our eating habits.
Our students cultivate on real vertical farms learning in a practical way how to adopt healthier and more sustainable food choices. Through the use of our school books they discover which foods are more sustainable and why adopting healthier diets we can lower our water footprint and favor sustainable food production methods.
Let's GROW a more sustainable future!
National
Italy
Lombardia, Milano.
Emilia Romagna, Parma.
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Vertical Farming Education Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Lorenzo Last name of representative: Franchini Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Co-Founder - Project manager - Educator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Donizetti, 5 Town: Parma Postal code: 43123 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 329 653 0666 E-mail:info@vfeducation.com Website:https://www.verticalfarmingeducation.com/
OUR MISSION
Vertical Farming Education is an Italian Onlus born from the synergy between our experience in vertical farming, education and psycho-didactics. Our intent is to raise community awareness of the environmental impact of our food habits, starting from the citizens of the future: the students.
OUR WORKSHOPS
We started to design our workshops in 2019. The goal was to combine practice and theory, developing an innovative school program focused on the water footprint of food.
Firstly we adapted a vertical farming module for school use, then we developed an interactive school book. The workshop so created lasts 3 weeks, from sowing to harvest, for a total of ten hours of lessons divided into 5 meetings. Our educators teach students how to cultivate, covering the following topics through the school book: plants, photosynthesis, hydroponics, water footprint, food waste, healthy and sustainable diets. The school book also includes a cultivation report to fill out, giving students the feeling of working in a scientific laboratory.
OUR PROGRESSES
In 2020 we won a private tender and launched our project, carrying out 14 workshops in 5 schools in our city, Parma.
The feedbacks were extremely positive and the pre-post questionnaire showed a clear improvement in student’s attitude towards healthier and sustainable habits and a 300% increase in knowledge about the water footprint of food.
In 2021 we started a collaboration with Planet Farms and Esselunga which decided to support our project, strongly believing in our values and good practices.
In 2022 they financed 15 workshops in 6 schools in Milan and this year we extended the partnership for a further 50 workshops in 15 schools.
This gave us the opportunity to scale up our project and hire new educators, testing the replicability of the workshop in different contexts.
We are now engaged in the realization of the workshops and in the search for funds to expand our project for the next school years.
vertical farming
water footprint
sustainable diets
less waste
innovative school workshops
Our main goal is to raise awareness about the environmental impact of our eating habits. In particular, we decided to focus our activities on the water footprint of food because it is a concept that can be easily explained through hydroponic cultivation activities and because it is a generally unknown topic. This lack of knowledge emerged from a questionnaire carried out by 102 students, 96% of whom underestimated their water consumption by at least 20 times.
According to WWF studies, every Italian inhabitant uses 6200 liters of water a day, 89% of which is used to produce the food we eat. This water is defined as “virtual water”, because it is not easy to observe if you do not have a life cycle assessment approach.
Thanks to the studies of professor Arjen Hoekstra, the Water Footprint Network and the Barilla Foundation we know that by adopting healthier and more sustainable eating habits we can significantly reduce the amount of water we use. For example, a diet mainly based on plants requires about half the amount of water compared to a more common diet based on animal products.
The focus of our workshop is precisely to make students aware of the virtuous change that is generated by choosing healthier and more sustainable food.
Through the cultivation activity, we are able to involve students more and show them the concept of water footprint in a practical way. Filling the tank of the vertical farm with the water necessary for cultivation allows them to understand the meaning of virtual water.
Once they understand this concept, it is easier to realize why hundreds if not thousands of liters of water are needed every day to produce our food.
With our project we want to encourage the consumption of food with a reduced environmental impact, starting from a lettuce seed in a school up to a healthier and more sustainable global community.
Cultivating at school in vertical farming can bring many benefits both from an aesthetic point of view and for the quality of the students' experience.
First of all, vertical farming makes it possible to create a more pleasant and lively environment, with plants and greenery that embellish the interior spaces of the schools. This can help create a more welcoming and relaxing environment, which increases students' motivation and concentration. Furthermore, being a form of urban agriculture, it encourages greater environmental awareness and attention to ecology. At the same time, it offers unique educational opportunities such as learning how to grow plants, the science behind agriculture and sustainable nutrition.
Students' experience can be enriched through practical activities, creating a sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment as they watch plants grow day after day. Furthermore, the cultivation activity reduces stress and anxiety, improving the quality of life of the students. Our teaching method is also designed to respect learning times and to promote interpersonal exchange between students.
Finally, vertical farming allows students to learn working in teams, improving their time management, problem solving and decision making skills. Farming also helps students increase a sense of responsibility, respect and gratitude for nature and natural resources, particularly important in large cities far from rural areas.
Part of our business model involves finding private and public funds to finance the activities and to propose the workshops to school for free. We strongly believe that there should be no barriers in education and that all students must have an equal chance to study and learn. Since 2020 schools from all neighborhoods have participated in our activities, from the city centers to the suburbs. We are also convinced that inclusion is a fundamental aspect of school life. For this reason, in our laboratory we divide the class into groups to stimulate interpersonal relationships and help among peers. Moreover, the practical activities break down any language barrier by itself, encouraging the participation of all students.
Vertical farming is a cultivation method also suitable for people with physical disabilities as it reduces many of the barriers of traditional agriculture. Precisely for this reason we are collaborating with a Social Cooperative of Milan to include some of their users in our workshops. The aim is both their introduction into the world of work and the contact and acceptance of the disability by the students. We are also committed to carrying out extracurricular activities with students from troubled families in neighborhood centers, as it happened with Centro Giovani of the municipality of Parma.
In the coming months we are also planning afternoon workshops for young people from the suburbs in the "punti luce" of Save the Children.
Our initiative has beneficial effects on different levels of society. First of all on students, the citizens and consumers of the future.
The teaching staff also benefits from our project, as our workshops allow them to deal with topics that otherwise find little space in the traditional teaching curriculum.
Moreover, the families of the students involved will also benefit as the "seed of sustainability" planted during workshops will germinate, improving the eating habits of all the members of the family.
Finally, the whole community will benefit from our initiatives for two main reasons. First, a community that adopts better eating habits is a healthier community. Second, greater attention and awareness about nutrition will lead to an increase in the consumption of seasonal and local products, triggering a virtuous circle that starts from the city and reverberates throughout the rural area.
Since 2020, we have created synergies and collaborations with different entities and different stakeholders and we are open to any opportunity that can help us achieve our goals.
We initially received both tutoring and financial support from the Cariparma Bank Foundation and from LUdE ("Free university of education") who were of great help in launching our project.
In the development of our school book we were helped by Madegus, a University spin-off specialized in correct nutrition.
On a daily basis we deal with school employees, such as principals, teachers and operators of all levels, students and parents.
As previously mentioned, some of our projects are also carried out with other entities and in different contexts, such centers for the disabled and for students in difficulty.
We are also partnering with private companies such as Planet Farms (the largest vertical farm in Europe, located in Cavenago) and Esselunga (one of the most important Italian GDO players) which give us economical and logistic support.
This year we started cooperating with new educators to carry out the school activities in Milan, while we are planning afternoon workshops with Save the Children.
Furthermore, we are cooperating with Spaggiari Group (one of the biggest school suppliers in Italy) to provide assistance to schools that will purchase hydroponic systems from their catalog. Moreover, we have started working with the University of Parma to receive technical and operational support to validate the short and medium-term benefits of our workshop.
These are just some examples of our collaborations. The truth is that we believe that unity is strength and we are therefore always open to accepting advice or help from anyone. We must also be able to earn the respect of all the stakeholders, with competence, education and professionalism.
The synergy between the knowledge and skills of team members is essential for the success of a project. Our team includes a psychologist and psychodidact, an economist expert in sustainable nutrition and a journalist with an executive master in education. All team members have previous experiences in business development and European planning thanks to previous projects and courses carried out with Climate-KIC and Europe Business School.
These skills proved to be fundamental for the creation and development of our project.
The vertical farming skills and experience of two of the team members allowed us to choose the right cultivation system and adapt it for school use.
The contribution of the psychologist and psychodidact was of great importance to design an effective and engaging educational experience. His skills and knowledge have helped us to understand how students learn and what are the most suitable methodologies to develop students' environmental-emotional skills, creating a positive learning environment. The knowledge and passions of the team members have favored the creation of updated and effective workshops, with innovative and practical components.
In summary, the synergy between the knowledge and skills of the team members has allowed us to create a complete and 360-degree educational program, which includes a psychological understanding of learning, an in-depth environmental perspective and a practical and experiential knowledge of vertical farming and sustainable nutrition.
The differentiating components of our workshops are the vertical farm, the topics covered and how they are addressed.
The cultivation in vertical farming favors a deeper and more rooted learning of the topics covered, giving us the possibility to cultivate throughout the entire school period and anywhere, regardless of the external climatic conditions.
Being able to cultivate with a real tool, which "even adults" use, is crucial in making students more involved and responsible.
Thanks to vertical farming it’s easier to convey the concept of water footprint, which is generally not studied in schools because it’s not easy to teach and is little covered in traditional teaching materials.
With our workshops we make virtual water visible and monitorable by students, who keep track of the water used during cultivation, comparing that to the quantity of lettuce produced. In this way they fully understand what it means to use resources to produce food.
Taking care of cultivation, from sowing to harvest, makes students more aware of the work of farmers, giving more respect towards food and for those who grow it. This would turn into more prudent consumption, less waste and more curiosity on the origin of the products we buy. We strongly believe in innovative teaching and practical learning that allow greater involvement than the mere repetition of gestures typical of traditional teaching.
As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, we have already replicated our workshops in different contexts and different cities. We are also testing the effectiveness of training new educators. The possibility of involving on-site educators allows us to replicate the program in different cities every year. It all depends on the availability of public and private funds to which we will be able to access. Once we find ways to fund the workshops, schools are generally eager to participate and all we have to do is to find and train new capable educators.
We do not want to limit our activities to the Italian borders. In the future we hope to replicate the workshops in different countries by translating the program into other languages.
At the moment we are active both in Parma and Milan, in schools and in some extracurricular activities. As the size of the project increases, we will expand our team to handle all activities, from fundraising, administration, communication, development of new workshops and carry out educational activities.
From the beginning of our journey we have always been committed to carrying out our activities with the highest possible quality.
We have invested time and resources to design workshops with a modern and effective approach. We have created and updated year by year a school book for middle schools that reflects the most renowned teaching methodologies, such as gestalt and deductive method. We do not want to impose any behavior. We give students understandable notions, trying to stimulate their internal motivation through which they develop and maintain good habits. Even the topics we teach have been chosen according to the students' age and learning ability in the desire to deal with themes that otherwise find little space in school curricula.
The vertical farms, in addition to being our distinctive trait, allow us to to deal with the issues of water footprint and sustainable nutrition with an engaging and effective approach based on learning by doing. Students can experience and understand firsthand how something works, instead of just hearing about it. In our workshops they grow the plants from seed to harvest, adding water and nutrients as needed, monitoring and tracking plant growth and water usage. This scientific approach stimulates students to be critical, curious and to ask questions to better understand the world around them.
For the design of our new workshops for high schools, on the other hand, we were inspired by the methodologies we learned during the training courses for startuppers carried out with the Climate-KIC and Europe Business School.
The general steps of our projects life’s cycle are:
- raising funds to finance the activities
- proposing activities to schools
- scheduling of workshops
- installation of vertical farms inside schools
- carrying out workshops and training new educators
- feedback collection
- dissemination of results
At the end of each project, we analyze the feedback received and work to improve our workshops.
The inextricable relationship between global food systems and the health of natural ecosystems is clear. Currently, feeding the world's population determines one third of global carbon emissions, 70% of freshwater withdrawals, soil and watercourse degradation, nutrient depletion, deforestation, loss of natural ecosystems and biodiversity. The way we produce food is unsustainable and based on a paradox: 80% of the land destined for agriculture is used for the cultivation of fodder for feedlots but the meat that is produced satisfies only 20% of our calories needs; conversely, 20% of the land is intended for the cultivation of fruit, vegetables, cereals and legumes which satisfy 80% of human calories needs. According to the studies of Barilla Foundation and Water Footprint Network, by adopting healthier eating habits we can lower our water, carbon and ecological footprints, reducing the possibility of contracting food-related chronic diseases.
We want to make people aware of their power as consumers. Aware that through our daily choices we can improve our health, reduce our impact on the planet and also influence the way food is produced. If we choose to prefer foods cultivated with sustainable methods by transparent and ethical producers, we will change the food industry for the better and restore our ecosystems. Education is the most powerful tool to positively influence a virtuous change in today's and tomorrow's consumption in an effort to preserve and regenerate the planet's resources.
From the beginning of our journey until the end of this school year we will reach around 2000 students, carrying out 100 workshops in 25 schools and 3 extracurricular activities.
We are proud of our results, but we are only at the beginning.
For the next school year we are going to apply to a private tender of Fondazione Cariparma to carry out workshops in multiple schools in Parma. At the same time, we will strive to continue our activities in Milan and to expand the project to at least one other city. To achieve these goals we will necessarily need more funds, train new educators and involve new schools.
In addition to consolidating and expanding our presence in middle schools, we are also planning to increase collaborations with high schools. In fact, we have already tested with success a different kind of workshop for 16-18 years old students. This workshop includes an interactive explanation of the environmental impact of food and textile supply chains followed by a practice in groups for the creation of startups to solve environmental problems. The method of filling out the applications of the startups is very similar to submitting a tender, so they will simultaneously learn how to develop a business and how to finance it with external fundings. We are convinced that giving students this kind of knowledge and skills is an excellent strategy to restore their confidence in the future, giving them the tools to create innovative solutions to fight global warming.
We know we have ambitious plans for the future and we are aware of the difficulties that await us to achieve them. Despite this we are ready to do whatever it takes to continue to grow together with our project.
Through our middle school workshops we teach students how to cultivate in hydroponic and vertical farming to raise their awareness about food supply chains, encouraging self-production and developing skills useful in the job market.
During our workshops for high-schools students learn how to develop an idea from scratch: compose a team, set measurable goals, finance the project with European, regional and private funding, plan actions and predict the project's environmental and social benefits. We want to encourage them to believe in their own ideas, broadening their perspective towards a more planetary view.
