Growing System
The system that I have been assigned is a hydroponic system and our hydroponic system is outdoors. Our hydroponic uses water with chemicals in it to feed the plants that are not in the soil. How it works is that there is a pump that brings the water to the top of the tower and it falls down onto the plants in the holes to water it. We put the pump on a timer so that it waters the plants every two hours. The plants that we have it this system is lettuce, green onion, and other things. After a couple of weeks or so, we found out that some of the plants were dying and we thought that it was because they were getting too much sunlight. So we switched the ones that were green with the ones that were about to die.
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How might we be more responsible for our own food production?
How we might be more responsible for our own production is to grow food on our own. If we do this, we wouldn't have to worry about finding locally sourced foods. Or we wouldn't have to worry about what we eat because we know where it came from. Unlike other foods, it wouldnt be touched by multiple hands and wouldn't have any chemicals in it unless you put pesticides or other things on you plants that you are growing. By doing this, we can be an example towards others and when they see us doing this, they would want to know more about it or they would want to do the same thing. I could teach others about this or I can help volunteer at places that grow food or organic food like CTAR in Waimanalo. In the future, I hope more people are growing their own foods because almost all the food in Hawaii comes from somewhere outer island through a boat. If no boats could transport food to us for some reason like a storm, all of Hawaii wouldn't have that much food. Only a little percent of locally sourced foods are in Hawaii and we need to raise that percentage by growing our own foods and helping other companies that grow food.
History of the food sourcing/production in Hawaii
Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen Cycles are very important and affect healthy systems such as CTHAR in Waimanalo. I went on a learning trip to Waimanalo, I learned all about farming. I learned how organic food is grown like how you are not supposed to use any chemicals or pesticides. You could only use the ones that are allowed in organic foods but those are not as bad. We helped pick out weeds by the ulu trees, taro patch, and dirt mounts so they can grow back again. In Malama Honua, I learned about the Biogeochemical Cycle. I learned many things about the nitrogen cycle such as our atmosphere is made up of 78% Nitrogen. We need the nitrogen for our dna and proteins, we cant breathe nitrogen but we must consume it through eating food. The cycle is that it starts in the atmosphere, then the soil, then plants, then animals.
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Food Diary
Doing a food diary and recording what I ate each day was tough to do because I always forgot to go on my phone to record it after I eat. I managed to get most of what I ate from 10/17/18 until 10/31/18 but I missed a couple of days. My results after completing this food journal, I found out that about 82% of what I eat is not organic, 93% is not locally sourced, and 75% is processed. After seeing my results, I realized that I wasn't really being careful about what I put into my body. I mostly eat food that comes from somewhere other than Hawaii and processed. That is very sad because the food that I eat goes through so much chemicals and hands touching it, I don't know where my food really came from and I could be putting bad things in my body. This helped me to watch what I eat and eat healthier.