Thanks in part to the mentorship of Paul O’Bryant, a Research Assistant with South Centers, Eastern Pike High School students recently clinched the prestigious “Most Innovative Design Award” at the regional Aquaculture Challenge competition, hosted by Great Lakes Aquaculture Collaborative, Lake Superior State University. O’Bryant bridged the gap between academic research and secondary education by hosting the students for a tour of South Centers’ aquapopnics systems, providing hands-on coaching to kickstart their project.
The team impressed the judges by applying professional, gravity-fed engineering principles to a creative, low-cost system built from a small plastic pool and floating Styrofoam. Proving the real-world viability of their design, Eastern High School became one of the few teams to successfully manage the biological lifecycle all the way to harvest. To celebrate their achievement and showcase their success, students engaged with school leadership by serving the local school board tilapia tacos topped with butter crunch lettuce grown right in their own award-winning system.