From February 26th to March 1st, Seward’s Upward Bound program traveled to Fairbanks, to learn how to build mini hydroponic grow towers. These are buckets stacked on top of each other that have openings for plants to grow out of. We learned that, but we also experienced much more.

We were lucky enough to go to Chena Hot Springs and get a special tour of the area by the founder, Bernie Carl. His motto is “I’ve never had a bad day in my life.” He keeps that motto; even though, on February 4th, his wife passed away. It isn’t just the fact that he can keep a smile and the light in his eyes that got me inspired; it was the way he spoke and the way his mind works. He told us, “Don’t just be an engineer; be an imaginer.” 

At Chena, they take the heat from the hot springs and turn it to energy for the whole complex. Carl bought a half-a-million-dollar piece of equipment to do this, and when it didn’t work, instead of being inconsiderate to the manufacturer, he worked with them to fix the problems. The company came back, replaced the equipment and gave it to him for free. Another motto of Carl’s is “If more people got up every day and tried to make the world a better place, it would be.” Chena Hot Springs was an amazing experience. 

This whole project would not have been possible without amazing coordinators, who spent an abundance of time to schedule it all. Most of the trip was smooth sailing, but the day we were heading back from Chena Hot Springs, we ran into a few problems. First, the area where we stored the luggage on the bus was frozen shut, and then later some of the lights that controlled the door started flashing. Since we didn’t know what was happening, we pulled over and waited for another bus. It took some time, but we had fun while we waited, by starting karaoke, everyone joined in. It was a great bonding experience and brought the students together before the workshop started.

On Saturday, teachers from around the Fairbanks community came to the UAF Cooperative Extension building to learn about how they could put these towers in their classrooms. It was great to see others getting hands-on with the project. There were three separate groups: one to code Raspberry Pi’s to automate the lights, one about how to care for the starter plants, and one to build the bucket towers and frames. Being able to learn about the way a mini hydroponic tower could be used to make our communities better prepared for if a food shortage happened was an eye-opener.

One of my favorite parts was on Saturday night. After a long day of building and coding, we all went out to the Cookie Jar; from there we visited the World Ice Art Championships. It was breathtaking to see what the competitors created–beautiful pieces from either one block of ice or from multiple ones. It was a great way to end an event-filled, four days.