BUILDING AWARENESS AND SKILLS FOR AQUACULTURE IN K-12 STUDENTS

Background: Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP) is the leading 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the U.S. building awareness of the health and nutritional benefits of seafood. SNP is addressing the country's public health crisis through education programs that inspire Americans to incorporate more seafood and omega-3s into their diets for improved health as per USDA Dietary Guidelines.

The 2015-2020 USDA/HHS Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends at least two servings of seafood per week and at least 250mg of omega-3s EPA+DHA per day to support heart and brain health as part of a healthy diet. Only 10% of Americans eat seafood twice a week and on average Americans take in 80mg of omega-3s EPA+DHA per day and children take in a lower level than adults.

Program Pilot: SNP launched a Seafood In Schools - Aquaponics Pilot for the 2017-2018 school year. The goals for this pilot are to help the next generation understand the health benefits of eating seafood and learn about aquaculture through a classroom aquaponics system and accompanying instructional materials. Learnings from the first half of the pilot will be presented.

SNP provided 10 schools with classroom sized aquaponics system, aquaponics educational materials for 3rd to 6th grade, and seafood nutrition educational materials for 3rd to 8th grade teachers. SNP designed measurement tools to determine the knowledge gains from this initial pilot.

In the initial pilot, SNP will determine the key success factors that would help identify teachers with the best background such as the support required from the teacher's school, school environment, student demographic, and other factors that arise in the initial pilot phase.

To ensure that an organization receives the maximum benefit from an aquaponics system, our hypothesis is that ideal teachers will be those that teach STEM, Family & Consumer Sciences, and Nutrition; the school may need to approve introduction of this system into the classroom; a small teaching team from teacher, food service, and school operations would be helpful with installation, planning for use of the system in the classroom and link to school foodservice, and maintenance during school and out of school periods.