Approaching agriculture through science, technology and economics
Scenes from this week’s Botany class. Angiosperms (flowering plants) produce fruit after pollination. Students learned how to botanically classify fruits. In lab they had to put the knowledge they learned on Tuesday to the test. They were presented with produce and had to determine was it even a fruit, then if it was they had to categorize it. Fruit is first classified as dry or fleshy and then there is further categorization within those groups.
01/15/2026
Scenes from this week’s Agricademy Inc. classes. I kicked off this semester teaching Botany to ~40 7th and 8th grade students. This week students became familiar with basic parts of plants and their biological processes. This is setting the foundation for the course. Many have never grown a plant some had never held live flowers or wore a lab coat. It was an enlightening experience for everyone.
01/11/2026
On Tuesday I started teaching at the school again. To start off the semester I had the 7th and 8th grade students do goal cakes. They had to come up with two goals, an academic and personal goal. I am waiting for parent permission to post their videos. It was a fun activity and will build discipline and accountability. We will revisit their goals regularly to make sure they are working on them.
The greenhouse whitefly is a major pest with a broad host range of over 250 ornamental and vegetable plants. Common hosts include tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and ornamentals like poinsettia, hibiscus, begonia, lantana, and ageratum. Its feeding causes yellowing and premature leaf drop, while the sticky honeydew it produces leads to sooty mold that reduces photosynthesis and overall plant quality. It can also transmit plant viruses that are devastating to crops.
11/11/2025
Scenes from tonight’s small-scale farming class.
The farmers learned to fill out week log sheets. Testing water quality and observing plant health is very important in hydroponics farming. They also learned about fungus gnats and IPM. They also harvested their basil. They plan to make pesto. They get to see how fast the plants regenerate leaves in hydroponics.
10/21/2025
10/12/2025
The teen vector inspectors setup two traps and did an official inspection of Horizon Science Academy Cincinnati. There was a lot of mosquito activity on the grounds because of the rain we had last week. They also did a tick inspection. The data will be posted soon.
Oh just collecting vector surveillance data. If you live in Cincinnati, Ohio can I setup a mosquito trap at your home or business to collect mosquito and tick surveillance data?
09/30/2025
This evening the hydroponics farmers in the Small-scale Farming course learned about fertilizers/nutrients and how to start plants from from cuttings.
09/28/2025
Today the Teen Vector Inspectors learned about vector surveillance. Vector surveillance is the systematic monitoring of insects, ticks, rats, and other animals that transmit diseases (vectors) to monitor their population size, locations, and the presence of pathogens they carry. For their lab they learned about mosquito and tick surveillance methods like tick dragging and setting up mosquito traps.
09/26/2025
The Small-scale farmers’ seeds are starting to sprout . They planted basil and sage on Monday. Basil is a fast sprouter. Sage can take a little time. I think I did see a few radicles on the sage seeds. The farmers learned about germination/sprouting last week and about systems and substrates this week. To put it all together they learned how to start seeds. A few people have never grown a plant let alone start them from seed.
09/26/2025
Scenes from Monday night’s Small-scale farming course. These lovely people are learning how to start an herb farm in hydroponics. They will have herbs and products available for sale soon.