Innovative and sustainable school garden

• Fight hunger and malnutrition in the world, the right to adequate food for all.

Development of an educational model focused on food, nutritional and sustainable security. Considering that the right to adequate food will have to be progressively resolved, it is better to start with future generations, disseminating knowledge and knowledge to transform the way we produce food.

• Innovative and sustainable school gardens

Innovations and technologies inspired by Biomimetics present new solutions for the food production chain. An educational model focused on food, nutritional and sustainable security will develop innovative gardens with students in different formats, serving as pedagogical, therapeutic, sustainable and income-generating tools when replicated in their communities.

• Food sovereignty

Each country has the right to define its sustainable production policies and strategies, so the development of the educational model of innovative school gardens can contribute widely to all countries, being easy to apply and adaptable.

    We seek to develop solutions to combat hunger, malnutrition and malnutrition in the world, promoting the right to adequate food for all. Lack of nutrients is the cause of widespread health problems, especially in women and children. In Brazil, poverty and social vulnerability hinder adequate access to safe and nutritious food.

    The UN report indicates major setbacks in Brazil, the malnutrition curve, which has long been descending, has started to grow. Malnutrition increased, as did the prevalence of anemia in women of reproductive age. The rates of conceptuses born underweight remained at 8.4%. Source 

http://www.justificando.com/2019/07/22/relatorio-da-onu-indica-que-fome-no-brasil-que-antes-diminuia-voltou-a-crescer/

    After decades of steady decline, the trend in world hunger, as measured by the rate of malnutrition, over the past three years has remained largely unchanged at a level just below 11%. However, the number of people affected by hunger has increased, and more than 820 million people in the world were still hungry in 2018, underscoring the immense challenge of reaching the goal of Zero Hunger by 2030. Source 

https://news.un.org/pt/story/2019/07/1680101

    The UN statement also points out that almost 50 million children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition and 149 million children have stunted development and growth, caused by malnutrition.

• What are innovative and sustainable school gardens?

An educational model that proposes the teaching and construction of different models of vegetable gardens with innovative concepts that seek to guarantee the food, nutritional and sustainable security of students and their families.

• What do innovative and sustainable school gardens do?

    They use active methodologies to develop environmental education and food cultivation actions in small spaces that can be replicated by families in their homes. The production of food, without pesticides, will be used in the preparation of snacks for students, and the excess production will be made available to the community through an application developed by the students.

    Among the various models of vegetable garden that will be developed with students, I highlight the creation of photobioreactors for the cultivation of microalgae Spirulina Platensis. Another proposal will be domestic aquaponics, a farming system that combines fish farming and hydroponics.

• What processes and technology do innovative and sustainable school gardens use?

    They use Biomimetics to develop strategies to improve food production and develop organic fertilizers and pesticides. For the cultivation of microalgae and aquaponics system we will use Biotechnology, develop photobioreactors and automated systems for oxygenation, pumping and reuse of water.

1. Who does innovative school gardens serve?

    This educational model directly serves students, families and communities in Brazil and around the world, affected by hunger and malnutrition, ensuring that everyone (especially children) has access to sufficient and nutritious food today and for future generations (ODS Zero Hunger and sustainable agriculture ).

2. What are their needs and how do they get involved with the solution?

    I will be taking the model of innovative gardens into schools, where students will learn to develop it and will be encouraged to replicate ideas in their homes. The communities involved will have access to food security and technologies that accompany the project, encouraging family farming and the productive inclusion of low-income families.

3. How will the solution meet your needs?

    Innovative school gardens will seek to serve communities that face problems such as hunger and malnutrition, ensuring access to nutritious and pesticide-free food. It will also promote targeted environmental education activities related to school feeding activities, social participation and nutritional education.                                                                                        The adoption of adequate and healthy menus will be complemented with an innovative product to combat child malnutrition, Spirulina powder capable of helping to meet the nutritional needs of malnourished children.

    Hunger and malnutrition in needy communities are related to the Challenge, as it needs a solution, the development of innovative school gardens will contribute by promoting the change of low-impact diets. This educational method integrates countries and provides knowledge about the production of nutritious foods in an innovative and low-cost way, includes the cultivation of alternative proteins such as Spirulina, in addition to absorbing 200 times more carbon than trees. Aquaponics also has benefits, since fish offer high quality protein and represent a source of nutrients such as vitamins A and D, minerals and omega 3 fatty acid.

    Thinking about innovation at school cannot be reduced to just bringing technological devices and computers to school and including educational technology, but england and the vision of the widest applications and problems on the planet. Innovation aims to take actions with the objective of improving something, improving it day after day in a constant exploratory practice. Innovating at school means bringing resources for teaching and learning to be increasingly useful and to keep up with the progress of the years.
    Therefore, the development of a proposal for innovative school gardens can bring benefits and innovation in the way of producing organic food for entire communities that are affected by hunger and malnutrition.
    During a survey, I was able to see how the technologies used in the production of gardens are low cost and can be implemented in local communities that, due to lack of knowledge and opportunities, still suffer from malnutrition.

   My solution is a new business model and depends on two types of technologies:
• Biomimicry, to develop solutions inspired by nature, for problems in innovative gardens that may involve the production of chemical fertilizers and insecticides (made with recycled paper and food scraps), automatic irrigation and temperature control and capture using Arduino programming. and other devices.
• Development of a food supplement based on collection and drying of spirulina powder to be integrated with school and family foods to combat malnutrition.
• Biotechnology, to develop different models of innovative gardens, such as photobioreactors for the cultivation of microalgae and automation of small aquaponic systems and small greenhouses.
• Development of applications to share excess food to avoid waste.

The school garden produces nutritious food for school lunches

http://www.emater.ro.gov.br/ematerro/2018/11/23/horta-na-escola-produz-alimento-nutritivo-para-a-merenda-escolar/

School garden project and attraction among students

Scientists grow seaweed to fight malnutrition scientists grow seaweed to fight malnutrition

https://exame.abril.com.br/ciencia/cientistas-cultivam-algas-para-combater-desnutricao/

Smart microfarmas - Algae cultivation systems for home and yard use

Urban agriculture: implementation of a low-cost aquaponic system in a residence in São Paulo.

http://engemausp.submissao.com.br/19/anais/arquivos/477.pdf

Project of an aquaponics system for urban regions of southern Brazil

https://sistemas.furg.br/sistemas/sab/arquivos/conteudo_digital/df28a0348b5714b18e39a8b767f74298.pdf

Aquaponics family system

    Scary data say that malnutrition causes 45% of deaths in children under five years of age. Two-thirds of Asians are hungry and in Sub-Saharan Africa, one in four people is malnourished. Latin America and the Caribbean also face problems with hunger, with severe droughts that have caused major crop losses, political and economic problems, among others. Innovative school gardens are the principle to solve this broad problem, meeting the goals and proposals of SDG 2 (end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture).

Immediate and long-term results:

    Guaranteeing the necessary food for a dignified existence for all the peoples of the planet, prioritizing the poor, vulnerable and, obviously, the children who will be the first to learn the techniques and later develop with their families and communities. Eradication of malnutrition through the cultivation of microalgae and the enrichment of food with the harvesting of Spirulina powder, reinforcing measures by international agreements on chronic malnutrition.
    In the long run, with the expansion of innovative school gardens across school boundaries around the world, promoting technology and resources for sustainable and ecological production will help to maintain ecosystems, avoid deforestation and burning, and protect the environment. production of external factors, such as droughts, floods, pests and other natural problems.

   Currently, innovative gardens are being planned to serve the 600 students of the Municipal School where I work and their families.
    In one year, I hope that the 145,000 students from the Curitiba Municipal Education Network and their families will participate, extending the project to Brazilian citizens interested in developing the solution.
    And in five years it is impossible to stipulate the number of people served in number, given that the success of the solution can expand it worldwide.

    In 2020, I will wait for the result of the challenge while studying and making adjustments to the project. For 2021, if selected, I intend with the MIT specialists to make the necessary adjustments to start the regional development of the solution and seek partnerships for national development. In 2022, I would like to take the project to the North and Northeast regions of Brazil, where the highest hunger and malnutrition rates are concentrated. I intend to expand the solution to the countries of South America in 2023 and the African continent in 2024, always targeting the most vulnerable populations and taking into account the planning and partnerships reached.

    I think that the financial barriers will be the biggest, because, in Brazil, there is not much investment in research and I will have to organize all the development with the value of the prize. Technical barriers may also exist, as the lack of knowledge of some processes prevents the expansion of ideas. Legal barriers hamper bureaucratization when accessing school systems. Cultural and market barriers may also exist, as the solution brings something new and proposes new technologies in the production of food and families.

   To overcome financial barriers, I will seek to obtain awards and partnerships with the Solve community in addition to government support. As for technical barriers, since last year, when I started the first stage of the project by developing a “Honey Garden” at the school that encourages the creation of native bee hives (Jataís), I needed to seek technical support from outside the school, as biologists , designers, landscapers, among others and I intend to continue seeking this support with innovative school gardens, especially with the nutritional part. The legal barriers will be more difficult to overcome if they cause the project to park, and for that I will need legal support to verify the legislation of each location where the solution will be developed. Cultural and market barriers will be overcome through study and respect, each locality will develop its own cultivation, respecting their customs and without imposing anything, allowing us to exchange learning.

    Currently, I work at the Curitiba City Hall, at the Municipal Education Network, and I work at the Pro-Morar Barigui Municipal School, in a maker space called Farol do Saber e Inovação Joaquim Nabuco, where I develop innovative projects with students in school period. However, the solution of the innovative school gardens was planned and designed by me, to be developed individually, without connection with the maintainer.

Right now, just me. But I would like to form a team with people who share the same interests.

    In 2019 I developed a project called “Guardians of the hives” in partnership with another teacher from the school where I work. This project encouraged students and the community to lose their fear of native bees, and to develop pleasant and flowery environments to capture new hives that produce honey for various uses in a sustainable manner. This project has achieved great prominence regionally, nationally and internationally in several awards and congresses. 

    Earlier this year, I signed up for the “Rio Barigui Mirror of Me” project, at the Creative Learning Challenge of the MIT Media Lab in Brazil, where we were among the 30 finalists, but we were not selected. This project is very broad and registers the history of the school and of a river that runs in the back of the school, crossing the neighborhood and overflowing countless times. One aspect of this project is to haggle the silted banks of this river, so we planned conventional gardens for these spaces and I designed the innovative school gardens for the internal areas of the school and later for the students' home, as an environmental, social, sustainable and income generation.

    I also believe that my experience of almost ten years with education will contribute a lot in the moments of conversation, training and exchanges with teachers and representatives of educational institutions.

I still have no partnership with any organization for the development of innovative school gardens. I count on the support of the teachers who contributed to the 2019 project, of the school management where I work and the technology sector of the Curitiba City Hall.

    My business model is based on an educational model that teaches teachers how to build different models of innovative school gardens with students. Among the main models are the photobioreactor for the cultivation of microalgae and the aquaponics system. This educational model may be marketed as a service to governmental, non-governmental and non-profit bodies aimed at sharing and disseminating the idea among communities that suffer from the problems of hunger and malnutrition. The service will offer training and support material such as handouts and online project monitoring and evaluation and depending on the recipe, the material and supplies for the production of the first gardens.

    I signed up for Solve, because I know my mission as an educator, I know the reach that the idea of a teacher can reach and also the sadness we feel when we need to teach a child who comes to school hungry and malnourished. And if this idea is enhanced by a network of teachers around the world, we can take it to many students and families, transforming their lives in an innovative and sustainable way.
    To develop the solution, technical support will be needed and this I will find in Solve's nine-month program, in addition to the supportive community, colleagues, guidance and strategic advice from the Solve and MIT networks. I believe that specialists will be able to help me by improving the solution and guiding me with the legal part.

    As a teacher I do not have much knowledge in entrepreneurship, so I will need to participate in training and conversations with specialists in the area to discuss details about the business model, service / product distribution, financing and revenue, legal and regulatory issues, monitoring, evaluation, marketing among others.
    I will also need support with the technologies to see if they are adequate, whether they can be improved, issues that involve cost-benefit and sustainability. It will also be necessary to accompany a biologist and a nutritionist to help in the development of Spirulina powder as a food enrichment product for human consumption.

    I would like to partner with teachers, students and researchers in the fields of education (MIT Media Lab), technologies, biology, nutrition, business, among others. I would also like to partner with other Solve Members who develop solutions in the same area and from non-profit institutions such as the UN, UNICEF and UNESCO.

    If I get the Innovation for Women Award I will be able to invest in workshops, training and initial inputs for girls and women from underprivileged communities who do not have a formal job and are dedicated to the care of the home and family or live at risk, teaching about the production and cultivation of innovative school gardens that can be installed in small spaces of their homes. This incentive will guarantee foods rich in nutrients and proteins, providing nutritional needs to girls, adolescents, pregnant women and lactating women, and may also generate income depending on the size of their production.
    In addition to learning how to use agriculture as a means of subsistence, these girls and women will also have access to new knowledge to improve production and to innovative technological instruments that will guarantee a more sustainable and environmentally friendly production.
    The cultivation of cyanobacteria has numerous therapeutic, functional and nutritional properties that will bring many benefits to the women served and their families. Its use in human nutrition goes beyond nutritional, antioxidant, immunomodulatory and therapeutic properties, it also contributes to the fight against some of the main chronic non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity, malnutrition and dyslipidemia.
    Finally, the solution will seek to equate their rights with adequate food, decent work and income, correcting the disadvantages acquired by being women.