Grow fish and greens. Interested in pursuing a career in Aquaculture or growing fish in your basement. This course will give you the basics for many future plans. Learn to grow fish and greens together in an indoor four-season closed ecosystem.
| Instructor: |
Chad Hebert, The Urban Farm Project |
| When: |
2nd Sundays of the month November 2022 - May 2023. First class November 13th |
| Time: |
1:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. |
| Where: |
WEI’s Amador Hill Farm, class visits to other locations, some Zoom classes over the deep winter months |
| Registration Fee: |
$270 |
Register Here!
Aquaponics, is the art and science, for the cultivation of fish and plants together in a constructed, re-circulating closed loop ecosystem, utilizing natural bacterial cycles to convert fish wastes to plant nutrients. WEI’s aquaponic certificate training is an seven-month lecture and hands-on experience course. The class will begin with basics in aquaponics and aquaculture. Each month we will explore a new topic of study as it relates to aquaponics. The topics will range from aquaponic water chemistry and fish ecology, design and equipment for aquaponic tubs, fish and plant health, planting techniques for growing aquaponic vegetables, system maintenance and equilibrium, equipment resources, lighting/energy efficiency, spawning and fish ribbons, harvesting and market planning, and regulations for aquaponic farming in Minnesota. This 7-month Certificate Training Course will provide you with basic information and skill training for understanding, building and managing an aquaponic system.
Readings, Homework and Take-Home Exam. You can go as deep as you want in this class in pursuit of your learning experience. The assigned readings will give you background information for the class where they are listed. These readings will be sent to you two weeks prior to the scheduled class. You can read these or just decide to listen to Chad’s presentations. If you read the articles, you will have a good chance to ask Chad questions you may have from the readings. Homework refers to special projects or assignments we want you to complete during the month before the next class. We are hoping that each of you will develop a small mini-aquaculture home system or start designing and building a larger one, if that is your goal. Homework also includes volunteering at least one day at WEI’s winter farm to help take care of the aquaponics.
Chad will cover all of the material related to these questions at some point in the class. Some of you may want to complete the Take-Home Exam to integrate and develop what you learn in the class. We can also use the exam to show future employers or post-secondary programs what you learned in WEI’s 7-month certificate class. The exam can serve as a basis for a letter of recommendation from the instructor, Chad Hebert, and WEI Director of Education, Jacquelyn Zita, to supplement your Certificate in Beginning Aquaponics, especially if you are interested in pursuing a job or career in Aquaculture. A WEI Certificate in Beginning Aquaponics will be issued to everyone who completes minimally 6 of the 7 classes
Instructor bio:
Chad Hebert has owned and operated the Urban Farm Project for more than 10 years. The Urban Farm Project successfully raised more than 30,000 pounds of yellow perch and almost 50,000 pounds of vegetables. For the past seven years, Chad has participated in a cooperative research agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Science. Chad has completed his HACCP training for both AIS and seafood processing. The Urban Farm Project was involved in a number of aquaponic projects including the project at WEI. Chad is currently working with EPNI to coordinate and implement a larger scale operation. Chad Hebert started the Urban Farm Project with the belief that there was a need to build sustainable food systems that could be available to all people while protecting the planet we live on.
We have one textbook for the class, Sylvia Berstein’s Aquaponic Gardening, which will be issued to students at the beginning of the class.
Dates for the class:
- November 13th, 2022
- December 11th, 2022
- January 8th, 2023
- February 12th, 2023
- March 12th, 2023
- April 9th, 2023
- May 21st, 2023 (1 week later due to Mothers Day)
