Aquaponics/Hydroponics
The innovative agriculture department at the Johnson County High School is taking agriculture well into the next millennium. The program has generated national attention and has brought thousands of visitors from over twenty-seven states and five foreign countries in the last 18 months. It has been featured many times in television and radio programs, and newspaper and magazine articles all over the United States. The program has developed from a struggling program in the early 1980’s with less than 100 students and only one female to a program that had 346 students last year with 162 of those being female. This is in a high school with less than seven hundred students.
They raise all types of plants in four
greenhouses. The most recent addition being what is called the Alternative Farming Center.
In this multi-crop center, students are presently raising tilapia, a warm water food fish,
in raceways in the 9,000 square-foot facility with water garden plants
floating on the water. Bedding plants are being grown on rolling
tables over the fish and hanging baskets are produced overhead. Hydroponic tomatoes and
cucumbers are produced beside the raceways. Hydroponics lettuce is also being grown
directly over the fish in a method that is being developed as symbiotic engineering. The
lettuce takes in nutrients from the fish water, particularly nitrogen, which can be a
detriment to the fish and returns the water with less nitrogen and more oxygen, thus
benefiting both fish and the lettuce. Koi, a water garden fish is also raised in the
center.
The Alternative Farming Center could very well be called a science and technology center. In this "school-based work development" environment, students are able to take the academic skills learned in science, mathematics, chemistry, and English and apply them in our hydroponics, greenhouse, and aquaculture classes in everyday applications that make sense. They are also taking the training which they have learned in business and marketing and further developing it in the program with practice in public relations, economic development, and job skill training. These students are truly learning agriculture for the twenty-first century.
Sponsors: Johnson County Board of Education Appalachian Regional Commission Tennessee Valley Authority State of Tennessee Farmers State Bank
Agriculture Department Home Page
Johnson County High School Home Page