We had the opportunity to move into smaller groups to work and grow our plants. I got assigned to the outdoor Aquaponic group, with three other of my classmates. When we first got to the aquaponic, we made sure that we had clean filters. We did this to make sure the water was filtering clearly. Next we caught five fish from a larger aquaponic to put into ours. My group and I tried our best to get the biggest fish, hoping that they would produce more nutrients. We have cleaned the rocks to refresh the growing area. Lastly we have planted lettuce stubs. We hope that this will grow healthy and successfully.
Food Diary Results:
Food Journal Data Analysis:
I thought collecting this data about the food that we are putting into our bodies really helped us not only as an individual, but also as a class. In the overall class, most of us had a lot of the processed, non-organic, and non-locally sourced food. It was helpful and great for us to physically see from the graphs how important it is to eat healthy foods, "healthy" meaning, organic, non-processed, and locally sourced.
History of the Food Sourcing/Responsibility of our food:
It is so important for us as Hawaiians to realize how key it is to produce/grow our own food. It is our Kuleana to care for our health. In that we need to grow our own food. If we did not have any way to get the food that is flown, or boated in, would we be able to survive? We need to keep that in mind of what we are doing. Nothing is better than growing, home made food. We need to provide for others and than ourselves. Back then, our Hawaiian people had to grow and produce their own foods. They did not have the boats, and planes to fly and ship their food. Know your kuleana.
After Winter Break Results:
After being on break for about two weeks, my group and I have seen major positive growth from our outdoor aquaponic! It was actually super cool to be gone from the aquaponic for awhile, and coming back to see a lot of success and progress that has been done. Our lettuce and has grown a lot more, we have a couple baby kalo that is in that has shown more signs of its thicker roots, the overall growth that our garden has produced makes us very happy and proud. It reflects back to us that the work and love we have been giving it is starting to pay off and show great results. As the first day back we made sure all of the filters were clean, the plants weren't choking (from algae, and other dead plant residue), made sure to feed the fish, and move the rocks around to stimulate the fertilized water around to feed all plants. We cannot wait to see more positive feedback that will be coming soon!
Recent Checkup: Feb. 22, 2019:
Our aquaponic has gone through a lot, ever since we came back from Winter Break our aquaponic has not been the same. Our water pipe has became very loose, and this has brought in more and more water, so our rocks and plants were flooded. We had to try and change all of the tubing to create a better flow. Then a couple days after that our water (that the fish were in) was very dirty. It looked as if someone dumped pure dirt right into the large container. Becuase of this we had to move our fosh to another area, then clean out the water. The next day we came back, all of our plants were floating. We had to replant and change the rocks all over again. This aquaponic group has gone through a lot, this will only encourage our group to work harder. The ponic looks very different from what it did look like before.