Three years ago, the idea for a mobile orchid propagation lab was conceived at Fairchild. Fairchild Director Carl Lewis said that it took another year to get the idea to Miami-Dade County Public Schools and then another year to find willing partners to make the lab happen. Martin Moats, who has been involved with Fairchild for many years and is a local orchid expert, brought the project to U-SoA, where the Design Build studio took it on.
Jim Adamson, who helped found Design Build in 2009 with Rocco Ceo, brought in furniture professor and cabinetmaker Austin Matheson to assist with this project. “I think one of the most satisfying things about the finished StemLab, for all involved, is it exceeded the expectations of the client, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and the MDCPS school system where it will be used. It was a very professional job. We also were good stewards by recycling or repurposing all of the equipment removed from the bus during the renovation.”
Adamson continued, “This project was a challenge due to the time factor. With the studio scheduled to meet only two afternoons per week over the semester, there just isn’t enough time to complete a project of this scope. But we were ultimately successful, because the faculty and students took ownership and committed the extra time and effort required. It was complex, like the renovation of a Kitchen on Steroids. It was a thorough integration of space planning, carpentry and cabinet making, and complex systems.”
Second year M. Arch. student Zachary Anderson said, “It was different from any other studio I’ve taken — completely collaborative in the design, construction and drawings. My favorite part was putting in the cabinetry. That’s when it really seemed to come together.”
Students from the MDCPS BioTech High School, which is a joint project of Fairchild, MDCPS and Zoo Miami, will use the bus as both a teaching and recruitment tool, hoping to get middle school students interested in the BioTech programs, which include botany and zoology, Lewis said. “The school has only been open for two years, and the original class is just choosing their focus. We’re very proud that two-thirds of them are choosing botany,” he said.
Sixty three schools in the MDCPS are involved in the Million Orchid Project, which aims to replace the orchids that were taken from Miami-Dade County 100 years ago. Thad Foote, son of former UM president Edward T. Foote, is the coordinator of the BioTech program at Fairchild. “Taking orchids was common and encouraged back then,” Foote said. “Now we aim to replace as many as possible, and it’s the perfect time and place for this orchid lab. The combination of conservation and science education has already changed the trajectory for some of these students and we want to do that for more.” Foote wrote a song to commemorate the occasion; “One by One” tells the story of the Million Orchid Project and how it will replace those long-gone orchids.
Lewis said that the “The Million Orchid Project is putting conservation in the hands of the community.”
MDCPS Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was on hand for the vine cutting ceremony. “The importance of STEM education is at an all-time high,” he said. “Botany on the go is an idea whose time has come. This lab will travel to places that need that, bringing hope, opportunity and science to every corner of our county.”
