PITTSBURG — Starting next fall, Iola High School students will be able to grow up to 500 heads of lettuce each week, all year long.
It will happen courtesy of a hydroponic growing container offered to schools across the state at no charge by Community Green Farms of Pittsburg. The company’s goal is to place a hydroponic farm-slash-classroom at a high school in every county in Kansas; a state grant provided funding to start with schools in Southeast Kansas.
They chose IHS to receive the farm in Allen County. It is expected to arrive this summer and be operational at the start of the next school year.
Students will have plenty of options to decide what to do with the things they grow.
Most will grow and harvest romaine lettuce and other leafy green vegetables for the school cafeteria, where it is offered to students on the salad bar. Some schools sell the lettuce to restaurants or at a local farmers market, teaching business skills to students.
Some use it for meals made by Family and Consumer Sciences classes. Other schools send it home with students at the end of the week.
Or, students can expirement with different types of leafy, green vegetables. Matt O’Malley, executive director for Community Green Farms, hopes they do.
“If students want to grow some weird thing, that’s fine. Just stick it on the tower and see what it does. There are hundreds of varieties of lettuce. Red, purple lettuce. Spinach, kale, chard. Arugula. Bok choy. Basil. Students can create a glorious new salad bar and get the health benefits of all those varieties of leaf lettuce and herbs that are good for you in slightly different ways,” O’Malley said.
Take it a little further. Perhaps students will designate space to grow greens and herbs from different countries or cultures.
“They can get creative. There’s a type of thyme that smells and tastes like Fruity Pebbles,” he said, standing inside one of the hydroponic container farm units on Thursday morning.
“I’m excited for students to try new things. Some kids may not do well in a traditional classroom setting but they come into one of these and thrive. You’ll be surprised which kids step up as leaders.
“By teaching kids to grow their own food, we are growing kids.” 
THE “FARM” looks like a metal shipping container.
But step inside to see the future of farming — or at least, the future of farming for specialty crops. It even looks futuristic, with LED grow lights that add a pink and purple glow to the small space.
“This is never going to replace your commodity crops, like wheat, soybeans and corn,” O’Malley noted.
