This is a little piece we did for our friends Dr. Chris Farrell (a biologist) and Jason Atkins (an ecologist) at Trevecca Nazarene University. The two of them have developed a great relationship with an inner city middle school down the street from the university and are helping teach them about sustainable urban agriculture. They asked us to cover some of the highlights from their lesson to show to the rest of the middle school. It was fun to see the young students interacting with all the neat stuff in their greenhouse.
We met the two professors when we filmed the first lesson in the Seek Social Justice series on “Rethinking Social Justice.” As a little background to what’s going on in this piece, Dr. Farrell has built an aquaponics system in the university greenhouse that recycles water from a tilapia tank up to different levels of plants whose roots feed on the fish waste and in turn purify the water before it goes back to the fish. It’s a pretty clever setup, and demonstrates what can be done in almost any urban setting. The two professors’ goal is to teach inner city students how they can grow healthy, organic food in their own backyards and feed themselves throughout the year.
In light of all the food deserts in our nation, Jason and Chris believe this is an important step toward helping people learn food independence. Both professors are a part of Trevecca’s new Center for Social Justice. In interviewing them for Seek Social Justice, I was impressed with how they are taking their Christian worldview and using it to change the lives of people around them. For more information on what Trevecca is doing in terms of social justice, you can go to their website and watch the short documentary we did on them.
(FYI – the music is from the song “Parachute” by Shugo Tokumaru.)
