Objectives

To create awareness about Institute for Systems Biology's Project Feed 1010, a two-pronged effort that aims to optimize sustainable agriculture practices through scientific research, as well as to create curriculum for high school science classes.

To raise funds to support high school science teachers and their students to become citizen scientists for Institute for Systems Biology's research into sustainable agriculture practices, especially the use of aquaponics for urban settings.

Strategy and Execution

ISB is a nonprofit that relies heavily on government funding to support scientific research. Since Project Feed 1010 is a hybrid project that has a public education component, it was a good candidate for testing the crowdfunding method; crowdfunding is not common practice in research – at least not yet. For our 24 for Science campaign on Crowdrise, we shot much of the footage and b-roll for the campaign video, and combined them with about $600 worth of stock images/graphics/soundtrack. We borrowed a studio to record the narration. We launched the campaign in Aug. 2015 and collaborated with FareStart.org to hold a kickoff dinner for 150 featuring aquaponically grown lettuce. We now use the video as part of our promotional and recruiting efforts.

The video is unique for its quality versus investment, and because we were testing a modern fundraising mechanism not usually used in the conservative world of federal nonprofit research funding.

Results

The Crowdrise campaign raised $12,432 to support high school science students.

Some project milestones since the launch:

• Partnering with Northeastern University to develop a modularized post-graduate course in advanced software development focused on creating cloud infrastructure of databases, web/iOS/Android apps, data analytics, visualization, and social networking for monitoring and coordinating sustainable agricultural systems across a network.
• Establishing a network of high school science educators to implement ISB-developed curriculum on sustainable agriculture and providing personalized support to integrate systems education principles.
• Partnering with Washington Network for Innovative Careers to offer a year-long high school course for students in which they participated as citizen scientists to innovate designs for aquaponics systems. Through this program, the students were invited to participate in the Bill and Melinda Gates Teen Action Fair, the E Environmental and Adventure School's Healthy Choices Fair, and the University of Washington's 2016 Earth Day celebration. Partnering with the National Science Foundation to create an Ambassadors of Change training program for high school and undergraduate students to learn about sustainable agriculture through Project Feed 1010 and how to transfer that knowledge to their respective schools and communities. (Look at these young, bright faces of the future of science.)
• Inspiring and supporting the Florida high school team that incorporated PF1010 curriculum into their science classes and took first place in the Global Change Challenge with their aquaponics project.

Media