This article was posted with permission from Amanda Morales, Editor-in-Chief of Central Florida Future.
Students to showcase research at Clinton Global Initiative
By Eric Quitugua
A team from UCF will be in Arizona again, but this time it’s not for football.
When the Clinton Global Initiative University hosts its seventh annual meeting this year at Arizona State University, 11 UCF students will be there presenting their commitments to action.
During the three-day event, held on the weekend of March 21, President’s Scholars Lucien Charland and Charlene Kormondy will showcase their hydroponics research on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts with the hope of putting their work into action on the neighboring island of Nevis.
They will also be presenting their idea for a chance at seed funding through the CGI U Commitments Challenge, during which a bracket system of teams showcasing their initiatives will compete for prizes of up to $5,000.
An additional seed funding opportunity comes from the Resolution Project’s Social Venture Challenge. The nonprofit organization, which supports leaders committing to social entrepreneurship, is offering $100,000 in total funds for finalists.
“The plan is to increase sustainable agriculture in the Caribbean to help make local communities stronger and more resilient in the face of climate-based related threats and other threats to their food source,” said Kormondy, a senior majoring in environmental studies. “What we’re doing is implementing a hydroponic training facility.”
Hydroponics is a type of sustainable agriculture where the growth of plants does not require soil. Instead, plants rely on nutrient-enriched water. The training facility, a 20-foot-by-40-foot raised shade house will allow water to be reused.
In soil-based agriculture, the ground absorbs the water and pesticides, requiring even more water to help plants grow. The shade house would eliminate that need.
In an island nation like St. Kitts and Nevis (SKN), food resources are limited. The lands used for farming face the threat of changes in the water cycle, as well as rises in sea level.
Kormondy and Charland’s shade house would minimize the amount of sun hitting plants and crops and would help regulate the temperature they need. Nutrients will be circulated through solar-powered pumps. It’s made of a polyethylene fabric that does not deteriorate from chemicals, mildew, rot, sun or weather. It is resistant to soiling and straining as well.
It would also be where workshops will be held to help local farmers and people from other islands learn how to use hydroponic techniques.
“I know that climate change is happening, and it is affecting people. What we do right now is critical, especially on these small-island developing nations,” Kormondy said. “They don’t really have anywhere to move. They have the resources that they have on the small island and that’s it.”
Charland and Kormondy founded an initiative called Standard Hydro. The two came upon the opportunity to work on SKN through UCF President John C. Hitt’s President’s Scholars Program. It offers a study abroad program to the islands, providing students with the chance to study the ecosystems of SKN and the environmental challenges the island nation faces.
In the summer of 2012, Kormondy, while on the island of St. Kitts, helped build a hydroponic shade house on the campus of Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College. That experience, and her keeping ties with the island since returning to UCF, caught Charland’s interest.
“Charlene participated in the President’s Scholars program the year before I did. She was a mentor to me when I was preparing for the trip, and I grew to respect her immensely for her work there, her knowledge on the issue and her passion,” said Charland, a junior double majoring in international and global studies and economics. “When I decided to launch Standard Hydro and apply to attend CGI U, I knew she would be the first person I would ask to join me.”
At the recommendation of professors and mentors in the Burnett Honors College, Charland applied, and was accepted, to take part in the 2014 CGI U meeting.
Through the course of the weekend stay in Arizona, the two will have the opportunity to network with students and professionals who may be interested in the initiative.
“The core criteria that we really [look] for in a commitment to action is one that is new, specific and measurable. We really welcome innovative and ambitious ideas, but we also want to see what happens when it gets very, very tangible,” said Bill Wetzel, director of CGI U. “What does it look like?”
Charland, who wants to eventually integrate into SKN’s local resorts and then spread to other chain locations throughout the Caribbean, also hopes to network with presenters and mentors first, and then win funding through the CGI U Commitments Challenge and Social Venture Challenge.
“Funding means, literally, success — at least to a point. We already have such strong local partnerships that once we have the resources, we will be able to build a hydroponic, solar-powered shade house that is a huge help to the local community,” Charland said.
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