March 10th, 2023
As part of our FYDP/Capstone 2023 spotlights, we’re excited to introduce project “SproutMap” from Systems Design Engineering: Allie Landy, Arden White, Mary McPhee and Phoebe Howard!
Explain your project in one sentence
SproutMap is a tool that allows community garden facilitators to assess the suitability of potential garden sites to determine optimal locations to expand their network, with a current focus on Waterloo Region but our ultimate goal is to create a scalable decision support system that can be adapted for regions across Canada.
What has been the best part of your project so far?
The highlight of our project so far has been working with GreenHouse at United College! They helped us narrow down a topic for our project and connected us with Smart Waterloo Region Innovation Lab (SWRIL) and the Waterloo Region Community Garden Network (WRCGN), which allowed us to connect with stakeholders to develop our tool. In November, we were awarded $2500 from Greenhouse’s Social Impact Fund, a pitch competition focused on social innovation!
What are the biggest challenges you've faced during the project?
Our team has been learning about a problem space that we were not previously familiar with. With a collective passion for education and food insecurity, our team discovered charitable community gardening efforts across the country that are working to make their communities better. We didn’t know very much about community gardens before this project, so a lot of time has been spent talking to experts to avoid making assumptions about how community gardens are planned and operated.
How does your project improve human lives and/ or our planet's health?
Community gardens can foster community relationships, address food insecurity, encourage healthy eating habits, and act as sustainable, local food sources. SWRIL has an ongoing initiative to develop a youth-led community garden network across Waterloo Region with the goal of encouraging students to develop problem solving skills and learn about creating sustainable social and environmental change. Community gardening initiatives can be found across Canada, including Sprouting Chefs, a Vancouver-based Garden program that we spoke to while learning about our problem space. SproutMap aims to help these community garden organizers strategically plan a network of connected gardens that can share resources and create a sustainable food forest.
What's next for your team members (ie: working full-time, looking for a job, starting a business, etc).
Members of our team are planning to pursue a range of academic and professional pursuits after graduation in fields from mechanical engineering to product design.