UNH Today

Four engineering seniors recently laid the groundwork for a sustainable aquaponics system expected to produce fresh vegetables and fish for a community in Costa Rica, 以及绿洲计划成员Siddharth Nigam, Paige Balcom, Will Tavares and Allison Wood hope the system they designed in the classroom will serve as a model for communities across the globe.

“This design can be used to produce food more efficiently than traditional growing methods,” says Nigam, who spent a week in Uvita, Costa Rica, with his classmates during winter break. “It’s especially useful in land- or water-scarce urban environments and in rural communities without the means to produce or access food.”

水培系统结合了鱼类和植物的生长，没有土壤. Currently, systems are either expensive or smaller, do-it-yourself designs. The group is applying engineering principles they learned at UNH to make the system more affordable and sustainable. In Uvita, 蔬菜太贵了，当地居民买不起, and the soil is too poor to grow food.

“Our family-sized aquaponic systems will hopefully help the locals get a reliable and sustainable source of vegetables,” Nigam explains. “此外，这将为他们提供罗非鱼的蛋白质来源.”

During their initial visit, students took measurements to determine the size and shape of the system and explored the viability of energy and water sources. 这包括采集多个水样进行测试. Nigam, Balcom and Tavares are mechanical engineers, and Wood is an environmental engineer.

From their observations, they formed an action plan for a return trip in June to begin implementation of the system. 该组织还与Forjando Alas进行了协调, a local afterschool program for at-risk children of the Bahía Ballena community in Uvita. The program provides a safe space for kids to learn life skills and gain enrichment through art and environmental education.

Balcom发现在村里和学生们一起度过的时光非常值得.

“I loved meeting the people, especially the kids at Forjando Alas,” she says. “每个人都很友好、热情，对这个项目很兴奋.”

Balcom recalls an 11-year-old boy telling her that he loved eating tomatoes. She told him that he would be able to grow his own tomatoes and eat them fresh off the plant.

“他的脸上绽放出灿烂的笑容，”她说. “It was really rewarding to see how we can apply our engineering knowledge to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Part of the funding for the project was provided through Project Oasis’s third-place finish in the student category at the UNH Social Venture Innovation Challenge, 得到了联合国大学海洋工程项目的额外资助, 一个来自埃默利蒂理事会的拨款和一个班级项目.

这个项目的想法起源于学生们大一的时候, 后来他们联系上了Forjando Alas.   

“We wanted to do our senior design project on something that would impact developing nations,” Nigam says. “Learning to navigate a new culture while following a constrained timeline provided challenges, 但它们也是有价值的经历.”

Nigam said more than a dozen UNH juniors are interested in continuing the project during the following school year to ensure its long-term viability.

绿洲项目正在与 生命科学与农业学院 (COLSA) and the 新罕布什尔州农业实验站 (NHAES). The students are receiving mentorship from COLSA faculty members Todd Guerdat and Andrew Ogden, and constructing their aquaponics project in the NHAES’s Macfarlane Research Greenhouses.