European Partnership in Hydroponics

Summary

Our society faces one of the biggest challenges in history. We are currently being affected by climate changes that greatly impact our lives. Pollution, temperature increase, melting ices in the Arctics and deforestation are just some of the inflictions. We aim to address some of these challenges in our project, namely the United nation’s Global goals of starvation and the creation of sustainable cities. Climate change has had and will have great impact on food production around the world. Growing crops the traditional way in the same geographical locations won’t be possible. We need to rethink the idea about gardening and farming. To teach young people about hydroponics will therefore be crucial to safeguard the production of food of tomorrow. Climate change knows no borders and affects all.

EUPiH objectives are:

• Increase the knowledge of how to create a hydroponic lab at the basic level among our staff in VET & school education
• Increase the knowledge of what digital technology to use for teaching hydroponic cultivation, remote project cooperation & problem-solving
• Establish a long-term European partnership to innovate VET in agriculture & develop STEM in school education by introducing hydroponics
• Increase experience of & readiness for transnational, Erasmus partnership cooperation.

Knowledge in hydroponics will be vital to safeguard the food production of tomorrow. We also see that hydroponics will be a great way to increase the interest in and introduce students with little or no previous interest/knowledge to science and technology. The digitalisation of society and the industry has so far been much about robots, AI & super computers scaring especially girls away from tech-related education and jobs. For example, in Sweden, the number of women working in IT/tech has decreased by 10% since the 90ties starting from already low numbers. To teach young people about the Global goals and to introduce them to the necessary digital skills for communication, remote collaboration/working and solving problems will be crucial to ensure a sustainable future.

Finally, EUPiH will also, foresee an opportunity for entrepreneurship in hydroponics for young people all over Europe. It’s a sector with great potential for growth – new job opportunities, exciting research opportunities, development of new technology and new business opportunities. And existing companies in hydroponics will require skilled employees in order to expand and develop their business. Therefore, to introduce young people to the entrepreneurs in hydroponics will also be an aspect in this project and reason for European funding.

Call: KA210-VET – Small-scale partnerships in vocational education and training

Coordinator

• NTI Vetenskapsgymnasiet Helsingborg (Sweden)

Partners

• Roskilde Tekniske Skole (Denmark)
• Stichting Uitwisseling en Studiereizen voor het Platteland (Netherlands)
• TKNIKA (Spain)
• EfVET (Belgium)

Duration

Start: 01/11/2021 – End: 01/11/2022