Spark-Y Youth Actions Lab will host Open House Showcasing Sustainability Projects

What have you done with your summer? The youth interns at Spark-Y Youth Actions Lab will have some pretty impressive answers to that question.

Spark-Y is a Twin Cities non-profit that provides educational programs about sustainability for high school, college, and alumni students. Over the course of the summer, interns work in teams to learn how to create sustainable food and plant systems. The six teams include a Sustainable Education (SEL) Team, Vermicompost Team, the Food Lab Team, the Mushroom Team, Curriculum Team, and the School of Environmental Studies (SES) Team.

University of Minnesota student and Minnesota Student Association Sustainability Representative, Justin Halverson, participated as a team leader to the Sustainable Education Team who worked on redesigning one of four Aquaponics systems at Spark-Y.

"What we focus on most at Spark-Y is that there is no such thing as "waste" in nature. Everything is usable!" said Halverson. "In aquaponics systems, there are plants and fish that live in symbiosis with each other. Essentially, the plants use fish waste as nutrients to grow."

Other projects include partnering with the Turtle Bread Company to provide produce to their business in exchange for compostable food waste, creating technology that tests if food is genetically modified, and building an aquaponics system at the School of Environmental Studies at the Minnesota Zoo.

"Our Curriculum Team is also providing the education for our upcoming generations to know what "sustainability" could mean and what our connection and role is within nature, because we are a part of it," he said.

The Spark-Y internship program occurs every summer and Halverson recommends the program to any students interested in doing work with science, plants, fish and replicating nature in a controlled environment.

The Open House will allow patrons to learn how Aquaponics and Vermicompost works, as well as learning about the rest of the sustainability projects worked on by the teams this summer.

Halverson said that it's extremely important to educate the youth about sustainability because we are the future. "If we are not pushing ourselves and the people around us to move into a period where we can thrive in sustainability, who will?"

Spark-Y 2014 Interns

Photo courtesy of Spark-Y Youth Action Labs

Learn more about Spark-Y Youth Action Labs here.

Spark-Y 4th Annual Open House
August 20, 2014
3 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Spark-Y
4432 Chicago Ave
Minneapolis, MN

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