“SolarPonics” at Charleston’s first STEM Festival

The Office of Sustainability had the great opportunity to join Charleston’s first STEM festival at Liberty Square on February 8th. CofC’s tent hosted by the Lowcountry Hall of Science and Math was packed with a full schedule of groups that rotated through to showcase the awesome STEM-related work being done at the College.

Spring 2014 Interns Virginia Whorley and Drew Gardner represented the innovative work of our Office by demonstrating our new solar-powered aquaponics system.

Photograph by Drew Gardner

This system is pretty cool – We took a Back to the Roots aquaponics kit, planted our own “crops” from Sea Island Savory Herbs in Johns Island, adopted a betta fish from our local Age of Aquariums in West Ashley, and installed a solar power system from West Marine in West Ashly to power the water circulation pump. With this system, we were able to demonstrate a practical model for some very complex and versatile concepts. We were able to tell people about alternative energy generation and storage, unconventional agricultural technology suited to urban environments like our own, food systems, and complex biological ecosystems.

Photograph by Drew Gardner

This was a perfect venue for our Office, because we were able to talk to people of all different ages, from elementary school children to adults, and everyone found some part of it that interested them. It’s hard not to hope that some of the little ones will grow up to engineer systems that rethink the way we do things for a more sustainable future.

Photograph by Drew Gardner

Hopefully we’ll get more opportunities to combine education, STEM, outreach, and sustainability. Stay tuned!