A working farm on a classroom desk
Soil, LED light and a full crop cycle. Students grow real plants, learn what light, water and nutrients actually do, and see where food comes from — without leaving the room.
The kits
One kit, then three ways to build on it
Start with the base grow kit. Add sensors and coding when you are ready, take the crop to market with the board game, and check plant health with CropHelp AI.
Everything needed to grow plants with soil and LED lighting. A full crop cycle on a classroom desk — light, water, nutrients and the life cycle of a plant.
Sensors, micro:bit and IoT nodes that add coding and automation to a kit you already have.
Once the plants are grown and monitored, the board game takes the crop to market — resource management, economics and sustainable farming as play.
Take a photo of a plant to identify the crop, spot disease and get treatment steps. It runs in the browser, with no app to install.
Kits are sold by Kidder Education, the official Canadian distributor. Schools can have kits sponsored through Inno-Hive, a registered charity that issues tax receipts for corporate giving and school programmes.
For classrooms
Bring the farm into your school
The kit arrives with everything a teacher needs to run it — and support if you would rather not run it alone.
- Build and setup manual, and an LED light guide
- Activity workbook and classroom learning resources
- In-person and virtual workshops from STEM Minds
- Online courses on STEAM Hub to go deeper
Why it works
Three things make the difference
Learning by doing
Students build the kit, plant the seeds and manage the crop themselves. Project-based from the first lesson.
Built by people in the industry
The learning resources are designed by industry experts who know which skills the agriculture and food sector is actually hiring for.
Tied to the UN Global Goals
Food insecurity, sustainability and employability — addressed hands-on rather than as a worksheet.
Learning outcomes
What students come away with
Four outcome areas, each with what a student will actually be able to do.
Understand basic plant biology
Describe the life cycle of a plant — germination, growth, reproduction and senescence — and explain how photosynthesis turns light, water and nutrients into growth.
Explore plant needs and growth conditions
Identify what a plant needs from soil, water and light, then experiment with different LED conditions and document the effect on growth.
Apply agricultural techniques
Plant seeds, maintain soil moisture and manage plant health — then evaluate which planting techniques and soil compositions actually worked.
Use technology in agriculture
Set up LED lighting for optimal growth and understand why wavelength and intensity matter. With the automated series, program micro:bits and sensors to monitor temperature, humidity and soil moisture.
Where it leads
Agriculture is a technology sector now
Blending agriculture with STEM opens real career routes. These are jobs that exist today, and the kit is where the thinking starts.
- Precision agriculture specialist — GPS and drones to map field variability
- Smart farming technician — IoT sensors from soil moisture to livestock health
- Agricultural robotics engineer — automating harvesting, planting and weeding
- AgriTech developer — farm management software and crop simulation
- Remote sensing analyst — satellite and aerial imagery for crop health
- Supply chain analyst — transport, storage and cutting food waste
Watch
See it built and used
Three short films. The full series is on our YouTube channel.
Assembling your kit
Step by step, from flat pack to first planting.
The programme behind the kit
How Farm in a Box fits into classroom learning.
In the classroom
What it looks like when students run a full crop cycle.
“Integrating the Farm in a Box Grow Kit into our curriculum has been transformative. Students enjoyed hands-on planting and using technology to monitor their crops, which enhanced their problem-solving and data analysis skills.”
Middle school science teacher
Contact
Get in touch
Sponsoring kits
Inno-Hive is a registered charity and can issue tax receipts for sponsoring kits into schools.
Schools & workshops
In-person and virtual workshops, and help getting started.
Resource password
The learning resources are password protected. The password is in your order email.
Get started
Put a farm in your classroom
One kit, a full crop cycle, and everything a teacher needs to run it.