Students at a New Haven magnet school are learning more than just standard classroom lessons - they're getting hands-on business, science and agricultural experience through the Green Thumbs program at High School in the Community. 

Currently, students in the program are using their skills to grow a mushroom and lettuce farm in a 40-foot storage container. 

Hello! My name is Kenzie Sandusky, and I’m a senior+ studying horticulture, (production and marketing ) at Purdue University! During my time at the container farms, I have several tasks to oversee in order to ensure a plentiful harvest for the CSA!

Inside Oak Meadows Elementary, school leaders have launched a program to hydroponically grow fresh lettuce and basil as part of the school district’s Farm to School initiative.

To grow vegetables hydroponically, plants grow in nutrient-rich water instead of soil.

When the first containers of Indoor Vertical.Farm's pilot system arrived in Bridgetown earlier this year, it marked the beginning of a new phase for controlled environment agriculture in the Caribbean. The project, in partnership with the Government of Barbados, introduces a fully off-grid, vertical farming installation designed for research, training, and education.

At Brookville Elementary, the freshest lettuce isn’t grown in a garden bed—it’s grown indoors, without even touching soil.

This innovative approach is thanks to a grant written by Kain Kennemuth, a second-year science teacher, who brought a fully functioning hydroponics system, called the Flex Farm, to the classroom.

Through the opening of Peace Produce at William Peace University, Pacer Dining is now serving lettuce grown right on campus.

Peace Produce, the campus’s new hydroponic farm, launched on Sept. 5 with a celebration that included samples of the farm’s fresh lettuce.

“The salads were served with two unique salad dressings prepared by Chef James Pelli,” Pacer Dining Marketing Coordinator Alex Strickler said.

A new kind of farm has sprouted at Cal Poly Pomona — one that grows upward and indoors. 

The first-ever vertical farming facility on campus is housed in a high-tech container built by Freight Farms that was donated to CPP through a partnership with the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Southern California Edison (SCE). The project brings hands-on research and sustainable food production together in one compact, climate-controlled system. 

The nutrition staff oversees the hydroponic program and works hand-in-hand with students, who are learning valuable skills in planting, monitoring nutrient and PH levels, and harvesting the lettuce used in their own school meals.

What is green and crunchy — and might help high schoolers unlock a future career?

The answer is all about educational partnerships. Virginia Western Community College has developed a 5-week hydroponics project for high school classrooms, using a hydroponics tower to grow Buttercrunch lettuce. A sensor creates graphical visualizations of data, and students interpret the data that has been collected over the project’s duration.

Leaders with Northern Illinois University and ComEd are celebrating the successes of a program helping students better understand the future of agriculture.

Two years ago, NIU started its Edible Campus program as a way to fight food insecurity and teach students about agriculture. Leaders say a successful part of that program has been its “Hydropod” vertical farming system.

Amanda Estes, 17, harvests green star lettuce on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, grown at Germantown High School's Flex Farm, an indoor mobile hydroponic farm from Fork Farms in Germantown, Wisconsin. Estes, a vegetarian, said she has learned a lot about plants' life cycles while participating in this class.

"We can feed the entire cafeteria with the lettuce we produce here. I feel like I'm making a difference in our community.

October is National Farm to School Month, a nationwide celebration of how schools, communities, and foodservice leaders are rethinking what “local food” means. It’s about strengthening food systems, empowering students, and creating a healthier, more sustainable future, one seed, one tray, and one lesson at a time.

At Babylon Micro-Farms, we’re proud to help bring this mission to life. Our indoor micro-farms make it possible for schools to grow fresh, nutritious produce on-site, all year long, with no pesticides, no long-distance shipping, and no growing seasons required.

WARSAW —  Jefferson STEM Elementary recently welcomed Steven Koontz, Indiana Master Gardener and owner of Keep It Watered, for a hands-on learning experience with Jefferson’s six aeroponic tower gardens.

The gardens, made possible through generous donations from Da-Lite/Legrand and the K21 Health Foundation, have become an ongoing part of Jefferson’s STEM program thanks to Koontz’s continued support with materials and expertise.

Science students at Germantown High School hosted a harvest event on Friday to showcase fresh greens they grew inside their classroom.

The students used an indoor hydroponic farming system to grow several varieties of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, mini cucumbers, snacking peppers and micro greens that they then served up at school lunch on Friday.

The district's food nutrition director, Jill Seefeld, said they built the lab this summer.

With a $3.5 million renovation and the launch of a hydroponic farming program, Fairview South School is ushering in a new era of hands-on learning for students with special needs.

The Elmbrook School District facility, home to the Waukesha County Special Education Consortium, unveiled its updated interior during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 26, the first major upgrade since becoming a consortium school in 1984.

Students are growing what they eat in San Jose as part of a nutrition program at Evergreen School District where students learn to farm produce, harvest it, and serve it for lunch.

It’s part of a nutrition program called Fork Farms that encourages healthy eating in students and gets them more interested in STEM learning.

Students at Quimby Oak Middle School are benefitting from an extension of that program with a new hydroponic system.

The Haverhill YMCA is hosting a harvest party to celebrate the second anniversary of its Freight Factory hydroponic farm at the city’s Gateway Academy.

The party is Wednesday, Oct. 2, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. at Gateway Academy, 415 Primrose St., Haverhill. Participants are invited to tour the garden and pick their own lettuce.

The indoor container garden is called a “freight farm” because it is set up inside a 40-by-8-foot shipping container painted on the sides in bright colors with the message “The Y Feeds Kids.” As WHAV reported when it opened in October 2023, it was heralded at the first farm of its kind operated by a YMCA in country.

Jort Maarseveen and Tijmen Blok started as two WUR students who believed that everyone should have access to fresh nutritious food anywhere in the world and ended up with Hippotainer.

Hippotainer’s mission is to design and implement smart vertical farms inside shipping containers to enable people anywhere in the world to access fresh vegetables. “We enable food production anywhere on the globe, regardless of the location, whether it's on the North Pole or in the Sahara Desert, we want to be able to make it possible to produce fresh vegetables”

The concept of Hippotainer began while cofounders Jort Maarseveen and Tijmen Blok were doing their Masters at WUR with backgrounds in biology, business, and biosciences.