Popular Tech Tyfu Twf scheme uses vertical farming to inspire pupils into further education and employment in STEM subjects and teach workplace skills

School children in Anglesey will gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology through a ground-breaking collaboration between not-for-profit Menter Môn’s Tech Tyfu project and Aberystwyth-based AI Agritech business, Agxio. Launched in the spring of 2021, the Tech Tyfu Twf initiative is already live in four secondary schools following overwhelming demand from teachers after the success of the pilot, with plans to expand it further across Wales.

The hugely positive pilot at Ysgol Uwchradd Caergybi was part of an alternative learning programme outside of the core curriculum. The school received a vertical farm, a full supply of consumables and specialist support from project staff to design an educational project. Students grew their own produce and developed a salad-bag product to give to parents, staff, and local business owners.

Tech Tyfu Twf helps schools to involve students in real-life projects, combining academic learning, engaging practical tasks, key skills development, and state-of-the-art technology. Project staff help to design and deliver bespoke lessons on vertical farming to all secondary key stages, with flexible emphasis depending on the aims of the curriculum. A shortage of students moves on to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, so the project uses current contexts such as climate change, innovation in business and space exploration to inspire and keep its teaching exciting and relevant to the modern world.

Nia Wyn Jones, Assistant Head of Ysgol Uwchradd Caergybi described the value of the scheme:

“We are very fortunate to have received a vertical farm through the Tech Tyfu Twf scheme. The unit was run by a group of Year 11 boys. As well as growing healthy and tasty vegetables, the boys developed skills for the workplace including entrepreneurship, proactively avoiding problems, problem solving, marketing, working as a team, effective and clear communication, and working to deadlines.”

The Tech Tyfu project is one of Menter Môn’s community-based sustainable collaborations with businesses, communities, public sector and individuals.

Project Officer, Catherine Pearson, said of Tech Tyfu Twf:

“We are excited to partner with Agxio who will help us to take our teaching to the next level. By collecting the school’s vertical farming data using the Mercury then Ceres platforms, we can expand the reach of the project to different subject areas, creating applications for IT, programming, data processing and engineering. Having a visual representation of the collected data with allow students to develop a good understanding of how manipulating environmental variables will affect the growth of their crops and help them to formulate their own research questions.”

The award-winning Agxio is the Welsh Government’s strategic partner for Agritech Innovation and is already working with Tech Tyfu managers on vertical farming projects across North Wales. Its advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence platform, Mercury, is employed to optimise controlled environment agriculture with the use of IoT sensor technology and automation, while saving costs for growers.

Catherine Pearson added:

“We plan to expand delivery and the benefits of Tech Tyfu Twf to more schools in Wales by creating freely available digital content, and we look forward to our continued partnership with Agxio to explore more areas for innovation in education”.