Westlake FFA & Regina Smart
The purpose of this thread is to share the story about how MARSfarm products are being used by the Westlake FFA chapter to experiment with lighting, hydroponics, and more! Regina Smart got her degree in agriculture education and has been teaching in Louisiana for more than twenty-five years. She has been an advisor to MARSfarm as we developed the MV1 and is also a personal friend. If you’re an agricultural educator interested in using MARSfarm equipment in your classroom, I strongly encourage you to check out the videos below! If you’d like any additional information or have any questions for Regina, just reply to this thread and tag her @regina.smart!
MARSfarm Mini’s
In the Fall of 2021, Regina applied for a grant to purchase six of the MARSfarm Mini’s for her classroom. After purchasing the equipment from MARSfarm, there were numerous challenges that we had to work through together so that the devices could upload their data through her school’s network. I can elaborate on this in more detail in a later post…
Agriscience Fair
Two students in Westlake FFA decided to use their research with the MARSfarm to compete in the FFA Agriscience Fair. Despite this being Westlake’s first time competing, that team took 7th place in the nation at the National FFA Agriscience Fair, which I mentioned in a previous post:
Growing Beyond Earth® (GBE)
GBE is a classroom-based citizen science project operated in partnership with NASA, designed to advance NASA research on growing plants in space. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden received a grant from NASA to create this program which is funded through 2025. Since 2021, Fairchild has partnered with MARSfarm to manufacture and distribute the materials for all 450+ participants. Regina has participated in GBE for the last three years and is now an ambassador that helps to mentor new participating schools in Louisiana.
