San Diego Met

Overview: Students in business created a business plan and non-profit organization structure to support the aquaponics garden at our school. Our community partner, Aquaponics 4 Life, maintains the garden and distributes produce to local families in need. Students create fundraising efforts to support the garden

Project Initiation: This project was introduced in September with the purpose of creating a student-driven, multifaceted business that would financially support the needs of the garden. Our community partner benefited from the financial successes of the business class. We used produce grown in the garden to create sellable merchandise and raise awareness of the garden's purpose.

Project Exploration and Development: --This course uses standards based grading and self-assessments.

--Applied Learning: Students learned how organizations are broken into departmental functions and come together to update statuses of projects in progress. Students created retail products, a market to sell said products, and then ran the market. Teams were developed via student interest and organizational need. Students conducted regular "stand-ups" mimicking how tech firms organize their work flow.

--This was an interdisciplinary project including the creation of a cookbook with the chemistry students at our school.

--Students kept journals of their progress, their understanding of their learnings, and their workload.

--Deliverables include: website, soaps, lip balms, informational pamphlets, cookbook

Project Revision and Exhibition: Students revised their marketing plans, products, and worked through problems as they arose in the process. The project was not exhibited in a traditional way, but rather culminated in a market on Earth Day.

Teachers and Subjects: Gini Mann-Deibert & Tabby Kohmescher

Industry Sector: Business & Finance