University of Alberta Permaculture Group

Apr 7

About

The University of Alberta Permaculture Group is a multidisciplinary student group founded in May 2019 dedicated to permaculture and the pursuit of sustainable agriculture. Permaculture is an approach to land management which directly utilizes the resilient patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems. A great example of a growing system based on permaculture principles is aquaponics, the integrated farming of fish (AQUAculture) and the soilless farming of plants (hydroPONICS). To this end, we are focused on the design, construction, and operation of aquaponics systems. Our long-term goals include enhancing the efficiency of our systems, publishing our work, and furthering interest in aquaponics, permaculture, and sustainability.

There are three main teams members can join, and you can join multiple if you wish. The Operations Team maintains our aquaponics systems, including checking water parameters such as pH, feeding our fish as needed, and recording system data. The Outreach Team promotes our group and educates about permaculture principles generally. This includes managing our social media pages, attending promotional events, creating marketing materials, visiting schools to give presentations, and seeking collaboration opportunities. The Research & Design Team compares data gathered from our aquaponics systems to a fully automated aquaponics system in the same lab as ours and analyzes variables for improvement. Under this team are also the design projects, which are sustainability projects directly or tangentially related to aquaponics. You can join multiple design projects or even lead your own! We currently have three design projects, including an algae water feature, a mobile aquaponics system, and an automated sensing and alert system. Joining the Operations or Research & Design teams requires some training which will be provided.

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