Students all over the world dream of making an impact on their community on a large scale. However, the people who persevere and keep pushing to the top are the ones who achieve this dream. In the sustainable agriculture class at RMHS, three students, Damian Gil-Lara, Ekaterina Yordanova, and Nora Tosic did exactly that, when they were awarded a grant at the Corteva Agriscience convention to help spring their project into action. 

In a sustainable agriculture class taught by Kirsten Eubanks, students are taught how to effectively grow food in an urban and suburban setting. In this class, students do hands-on work with high tunnels, the greenhouse, raised beds, hydroponics systems, and aquaponics systems. 

“The students that take this class are really motivated to learn the content. It just makes it a fun class overall,” said Eubanks.

The passion for this project started in this sustainable agriculture class. When students specifically learned about aquaponics systems and hydroponics systems, the passion for the project they created was brought to life. A hydroponics system allows food to grow a lot faster without soil and with less water. In turn, it will help food grow in an effective and low-cost manner for those communities that need it most. Aquaponics uses this system to create a symbiotic combination in which plants are fed the aquatic animals’ discharge or waste. 

As a result of studying these topics, Tosic, Gil-Lara, and Yordanova, created a hydroponic solution to help people in our community that come from low economic backgrounds. The plan is to give them hydroponic systems, so that they can receive healthy vegetables at a low-cost. In addition, the students  are planning to create informational videos about how to make hydroponics at home in 8 different languages so that everyone that would like to, can create a hydroponics system. 

“Since Rolling Meadows is so diverse, we decided to have a variety of languages that we could translate the video to,” said Yordanova. 

Originally, Tosic, Gil-Lara, and Yordanova, had applied for another grant, beforehand, to help with the costs of the hydroponics systems, but they weren’t able to obtain that grant. However, they were determined. The students went ahead and applied for a grant run through Corteva Agriscience, which is a company that does research on how to create sustainably through agriculture and improve the food production industry.  

“When we applied for this grant, we built upon what we already had and tried looking for problems in our communities,” said Gil-Lara. In doing so, the students were invited to the Coteva Agriscience headquarters on a three-day, all expenses paid, trip in Indianapolis. There, they were awarded a $2,000 grant to move forward with their project. 

“I always figured that this would be a project that they could go far with. The students were very motivated and they worked as hard as possible to make sure it succeeded,” said Eubanks.

The students share a passion for helping those in need. When they combined this passion with science, they were able to create something life-changing for many. Tosic, Gil-Lara, and Yordanova, are a prime example of what it means to  achieve great things in the community. Everyone in the RMHS circle is proud of them and they hope that this sets an example for those who want to excel and help others.