New Growth Aquaponics & Farming Project
Ellerton Primary School – New Growth Aquaponics & Farming Project – February 2024
New Growth Aquaponics & Farming Project
Project Goals:
The Ellerton Primary School seeks to improve and expand its existing agricultural science programme.
We are a small school nestled in the St. George valley. Their Agri-science programme utilizes an
integrated approach of the core subjects inclusive of science, mathematics, language and social studies
to cater to students ages three to eleven, inclusive of students from the Ellerton Primary Special Unit.
This approach allows students to develop and apply critical thinking, reasoning and problem-solving
skills as they interact within the various components of the programme.
These components include traditional crop agriculture in their shade house, container gardening and the
care and maintenance of our established local fruit tree orchard. Additionally, through the engage,
educate and empower approach their students are active in the daily care of a small herd of black belly
sheep and a colony of rabbits in their Rabbitry.
As they seek to improve our existing programme, they intend to install drip irrigation, improve drainage
in the shade house, connect a rain water collection tank, pave the floor and repair the roof of the
Rabbitry, establish at least four more sets of raised beds, purchase much needed gardening tools and,
supplement the cost of feed and plant matter for our animals.
In their bid to expand they aim to establish an aquaponics growth system as they continue to broaden
the skills sets that they implement through the programme. At its base they seek to offer alternative
opportunities for student excellence and empowerment and to cater to the generally low-income
community that their school is nestled in. Students affected by poverty often times do not benefit from
exclusively traditional approaches to education as those approaches generally do not consider the
specific challenges that they face.
To achieve their goals, the School will continue with the current programme where the entire School
complement is timetabled to be engaged at least four times a week. With the additional support and
resources, they will now be able to provide further training in the areas of aquaponics, short crop
farming, care of sheep and care of rabbits. Students, staff, parents and interested community members
will benefit from this training as this will ensure continuity over a three-year period in the initial stages.
Training will be provided through the Ministry of Agriculture (Animal Nutrition Unit), the Barbados 4H
and Adams Aquaponics