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30 | theburgnews.com | 08.19 hands-on experience in aquaponics, a form of hydroponics—growing and sustaining plants in water—that utilizes aquatic life waste as fertilizer. In total, AgWorks comprises 3,000 plants and 400 fish, with plans for further expansion. The facilit y also includes several student research labs funded through various grants. "Every student has to clean, harvest and plant," said CCA's Katelyn McNally. "Some require teamwork, some work alone. It's very important that students run this facilit y. They need to make mistakes and learn from that." Since CCA operates as a cyberschool, most of its full-time students access J oshua Cincotta, an incoming senior at Commonwealth Charter Academy, doesn't seem to mind spending part of his summer tending to plants at school. en again, the Midtown Harrisburg teen isn't dealing with your typical potted seedlings found on classroom windowsills. Cincotta, 17, is one of many CCA students in grades K-12 pitching in to run AgWorks at CCA, the largest public educational aquaponics facility in the United States, located right at CCA's Capital Campus in Harrisburg. is state-of-the-art learning laboratory provides students at all grade levels with At CC A—it's a school, it's a farm. bY PhYLLIs ZImmermAn AgWorks during the school year on a remote basis. ese students obtain virtual learning experiences through live cameras, high-tech water monitoring sensors and an online digital dashboard that processes real-time data. Students like Cincotta who live near the school often pop in to do lab tasks in person. Earlier this year, he and lab partner Kenya Mitchell, an incoming CCA senior from Steelton, began designing an AgWorks fish autofeeder as an independent study project under the tutelage of math tutor Daniel Friess. e project remains ongoing, Cincotta said. CCA also has developed a fully functional, smaller-scale mobile version tHiS PaGe: AgworKs At ccA FAcILItY In hArrIsburg oPPoSite PaGe toP roW: dAnIeL FrIess (ccA mAth tutor) student KenYA mItcheLL (steeLton) student nAthAnIeL sAXe (sPrIngettsburY townshIP) LeFt to rIght: sAmAnthA Johnson (ccA dIrector oF AquAPonIcs ProgrAms) student gAbe LongenecKer (susquehAnnA townshIP) student ALIsher AmInoV (LebAnon) oPPoSite PaGe BottoM roW: LeFt to rIght: sAmAnthA Johnson (ccA dIrector oF AquAPonIcs ProgrAms) student KenYA mItcheLL (steeLton) AgworKs At ccA FAcILItY In hArrIsburg LeFt to rIght: student KenYA mItcheLL (steeLton) student JoshuA cIncottA (hArrIsburg)

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