How Hydroponics helps students create new worlds: POLY’s Ben Leddy explains.

Poly, a Food + Future product debuted in 2016 at elementary schools in Boston and Minneapolis and has become a highlight in the classroom with both students and teachers. We’re not sure who has more fun with Poly…the kids or its Director of Curriculum, Ben Leddy, whose enthusiasm runs deep into Poly’s curriculum with his signature blend of theatrics and science-based fun.

Here’s an introduction to Poly Q&A session with Director of Curriculum Ben Leddy:

Q: First, what is Poly?

A: Poly is an education venture based at Food + Future to bring hydroponic plant growing to classrooms. Hydroponics is growing plants without soil; just water plus nutrients so kids can see the plants as they grow and they can customize the world inside their hydroponic machine.

The big picture is helping kids grow and explore within the realm of science and also nutrition. Poly (which is the size of a small aquarium and can fit on a desk) is a hands-on, living experience to engage kids in the classroom.

Q: What age group is utilizing Poly?

A: Right now, we’re targeting K-8 educators, this is where the mission lies at the present moment. From 5th or 6th grade on, often there’s a dedicated science teacher but below those grades there’s an elementary teacher that is ‘jack of all trades.’ If teachers feel like they lack time or experience to teach science, Poly provides a way to ease science into the curriculum and infuse it with other skills in math and literacy so teachers don’t feel like they have to give up other subjects in order to bring in science.

Q: How did you get involved with Food + Future?

A: I had a been a teacher and tutor in charter schools in the Boston area for four years. I’m passionate about creating learning experiences that are effective, inclusive and engaging to a variety of different types of students; first generation immigrant families, students with disabilities, English language learners. It’s important for me to use innovative learning to help all students succeed.

I was in the middle of a masters program when I saw a Facebook post in March 2016 about Food + Future looking for a teacher who could help for a week or so to come up with some Poly curriculum, it was just a design phase. I came into the office space and everything was white and covered in post it notes! I felt right at home.

I couldn’t hide my excitement about the creative possibilities of Poly: Could it become a fern-filled dinosaur habitat? Could it become Plymouth in 1620? Could it be growing plants on Mars? The possibilities seemed endless and engaging because it’s so hands on and inclusive. It goes way beyond just memorizing science from a textbook.

Food+Future had that spirit of ‘Let’s do this!’ The value they placed on my input as a teacher had me sold from the beginning, this is a place to make some real impact.

Q: How did you begin to share Poly in classrooms?

A: It started with a general strategy in May 2016 with summer camps in Minneapolis and Boston that would lead into a fall 2016 pilot program. We built relationships and found a small cohort of six summer camps. We learned a lot, the kids were engaged with the curriculum and we could see that we were on the right track. Preparing for the fall was about more relationship building and building trust. What was crucial to our success was being able to speak as a former teacher along with my colleague, Alison Slate our Director of Research for Poly, who also comes from a teaching background. We connected ‘educator to educator’ to figure out their specific needs and how can we could make Poly curriculum work for them.

Q: What is Hydroponics?

A: Hydroponics has been around for decades, it’s an indoor growing technique used globally. MIT Media Lab’s Open Ag explored it with their personal food computer and continues to do so in a controlled robust environment. We approached it from a lens of ‘How can this be helpful to kids?’ You could just use soil to teach, but hydroponics is great because it speeds up plant growth which is beneficial for a classroom setting. It’s also pretty simple for teachers to get started, they really just need to add tap water. In many ways it may seem high tech with the purple lights and the bubbler, but it’s very low tech in that you simply have nutrients, light and water. It’s basically the same upkeep as having a class pet.

Q: Why is it resonating so well with the students?

A. Students love taking control of the variables that they are able to change and experiment with on Poly. Within the system, students can create different growing environments by deciding to change the temperature or the duration of the lighting. It’s fantastic to see how involved and engaged kids get when they have choice in the matter, it speaks to the power of Poly as a platform to let kids’ imaginations run wild.

We can also explore with different species, for example if teachers want to talk about ancient agriculture, we have some curriculum called the ‘Mummy’s Tomb,’ for growing corn and quinoa while exploring the civilizations where they originated. After six weeks, they can plug in new species like aquatic coastal saltwort to create an ocean environment and learn about ocean pollution. Our whole emphasis is to think about Poly as a stage where different worlds can unfold and stories can be told with these plants.

After six weeks in the classroom with our ‘Mystery Food’ unit, (growing greens without knowing the types) a 5th grader in Minneapolis began to identify the plants with a smile and whispered,

“I wanna eat the lettuce!”

Another gratifying response came from a Boston student who simply said, “Mind. Blown.” Between first graders and middle schoolers, there’s something very unifying in this growing experience that speaks to people of all ages, the joy of plants.

Poly also teaches patience. We want to strike a balance that’s developmentally appropriate for kids. One of our big open questions is, ‘In the age of smartphones, video games and instant gratification, are kids really going to be on board for a slower than usual experience?’

It’s not a virtual plant that just pops into life, it’s not Pokemon, but the secret sauce of Poly is that kids feel a sense of ownership and get to see enough change over time to see and appreciate the incremental changes; a new leaf is interesting, a new branch, when something finally comes into bloom they see that it’s been worth the wait. We can set the example with curriculum that there are certain things worth watching and waiting for.

Q: What are some of the ways you continue to expand the program?

A.: We have our ‘Plant Olympics,’ which is a fun competition between classrooms to see who can grow the most beans and peas. Instead of us giving exact species and directions to grow something, we offer classrooms a chance to experiment and change a variable in their environment so it’s both competitive and collaborative. We also designed a web app that allows teachers and kids to photograph the plants and input data and see the story of their plants by sliding a finger on the app so they can see how their plants have developed. There’s excitement and agony of when plants do well and when they don’t. We are going against the season by growing beans and peas in middle of January.

Q: How are you spreading the word in 2017?

A: Poly phase two involves heading to three major conferences: Boston’s regional LearnLaunch conference, SXSWedu in Austin, TX and the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) conference in Los Angeles. We look forward to meeting and connecting with people at each of these events.

Q: What’s next for Poly in 2017?

A: Our 2017 goal is to be able to bring Poly to more schools across the country this fall and to continue iterating our curriculum and living out our mission of bringing something hands-on into the classroom to encourage fun with science.

We’re also exploring different uses for this environment. For example, Poly is a hydroponic grower but there’s no reason you couldn’t slide in some soil and do experiments around erosion or put in fungus and learn how mushrooms grow, or hook up a butterfly net and grow caterpillars. We continue to look at how can we make this hardware more modular and open up more wells for kids.

We’re always working to improve the Poly experience and what has made this a success from the very start is the deep involvement of teachers and kids in the planning process.

As a former teacher, I’ve seen lots of initiatives come from the top down; where technology lands in a classroom and ends up collecting dust because teachers were not involved in the planning process. I feel proud about the way we’ve involved teachers, done classroom observations and incorporated feedback to keep creating something that’s useful and fun. Our success is a testament to the work of the teachers involved.