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Aquaculture Challenge
Get involved! Become a liaison today!
What is the Aquaculture Challenge?
The Aquaculture Challenge is a competition held by Lake Superior State University and the Michigan Sea Grant program. Teams sponsored by a school or after school organization (ie.e 4-H, FFA, etc) are tasked with creating their own small-scale aquaponics system. In addition to not only creating the system each team is tasked with monitoring the parameters such as dissolved oxygen, water temperature, luminosity and the media moisture. The last components of the challenge tend to change year from year, but they are to develop outreach and extension projects too.
The challenge gives the students a few months to conceptualize and implement their system's design, configure their monitoring system with sensors, and create the outreach or extension projects. The students are supported through virtual resources and a team liaison (YOU!) who meets with the teams throughout the year to help them along the way.
Finally teams complete the challenge by submitting documents and videos describing their systems, monitoring and outreach projects. Awards are given for each component of the challenge along with a cumulative award!
Challenge Outline
Teams may complete one or more of the following components of the challenge. There will be awards for each portion of the challenge along with a cumulative award!
A. Design Challenge: Students will design and build a tabletop aquaponics system (200 cubic feet or smaller) to further their understanding of the engineering, the design process as well as the basics around aquaculture and aquaponics.
B. Monitoring Challenge: Students will monitor the chemical and biological properties of their system to further their understanding of the nitrogen cycle, water chemistry, plant growth, fish growth and adaptive management.
C. Business Challenge: Students will utilize a system to generate a business plan targeting industry issues and solutions.
D. Seafood Challenge: Students will perform a culinary demonstration, cooking using ingredients from their system, or similar ingredients. Additional points for performing outreach to the public alongside the cooking demonstration.
How to become a liaison?
Each year LSSU students help support the challenge by acting as team liaisons and sometimes as paid employees to assist with the challenge logistics. There are three opportunities this year:
1. Volunteer Liaison: Liaisons are the backbone of the challenge. As a Liaison you will take on 1-3 teams (your preference) and meet with each team three times during the competition. There are guides for what to cover in the meetings, and Dr. Evans or myself will often join those meetings to assist. You are mainly in charge of logistics of setting them up. There will also be a required background check through the MSU volunteer system getting you to be a certified gold volunteer with Michigan State University Extension. Click here to fill out a quick application now
2. 5 hour a week position: This paid position ($10-$15 per hour) will report to Dr. Evans. It will involve potentially being a Liaison, assisting with Aquaculture challenge promotions, and assisting with seafood workshops. Click here to fill out a quick application now
3. 10 hour a week position: This paid position ($10-$15 per hour) will report to Elliot Nelson. It will involve potentially being a Liaison, assisting with Aquaculture challenge promotions, and other aquaculture projects. Click here to fill out a quick application now
Please note for all of these positions, it isn't that important that you are an aquaculture expert, but rather we need students who are willing to be organized and help with logistics. You don't need to know all about aquaculture to help! We just need willing folks who are eager to learn and able to stay organized.
Get started today!
Get in touch so we can start working together!