Award of $15,000 to be used for aquaponics

Two Lethbridge residents are now the proud recipients of a $15,000 Youth Innovation Challenge award.

The funding is given out by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and recognized by the Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, as Canada’s newest environmental innovators.

Gabrielle Kirk, one of the winners of the funding, explains what the money will be used for.

“It goes towards continuing our project, continuing our work. So right now we build small scale aquaponics systems. Aquaponics is just a really sustainable method of agriculture and we build them primarily in schools to teach youth about sustainable agriculture and just environmental leadership and really empower them to be able to take action and make change in relation to the environment. And it’s just also a really fantastic experiential learning tool where they can do hands on learning and grow plants and fish and produce altogether.”

Kirk and Michael Lavorato help run Aquaponics World, which is based out of Lethbridge.

They were both able to beat out 70 applicants to win the challenge.