Founded in the summer of 2024, WLF (Water, Life, Food) Gardens is a student-led engineering initiative developed and operated by undergraduate students at Simon Fraser University, proudly supported by the Pacific Water Research Centre (PWRC). What began as a small team of eight students from the Faculty of Applied Sciences has now grown into a team of over twenty dedicated individuals driven by a shared passion for sustainability, innovation, and community well-being.

Through collaboration, research, and hands-on design, the WLF Gardens team have designed a custom hydroponic garden system located within the PWRC Lab at SFU Surrey’s Engineering campus, and are on their way to implementimng an operational hydroponic system.

Beyond the scope of garden system construction, the WLF team looks forward to incorporating a broader mission to give back to our surrounding community. Our team is committed to donating the produce grown in our hydroponic system to local community food aid organizations. It is our contribution to the ongoing efforts to provide fresh, healthy food to those in need. This initiative is founded on the principle that engineering and social responsibility are closely related.

WLF Goals

Fight food insecurity:

• WLF plans to increase access to fresh and nutritious produce for local communities experiencing food insecurity. Through our hydroponic gardening system, we can grow high-quality vegetables year-round, regardless of weather conditions.
• By collaborating with local food banks, and community food organizations, we can ensure the produce we grow in our garden is directly benefiting those in need.
• Showing that engineering can play a critical role in addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals and challenge resource scarcity.

Raise awareness on hydroponic gardening systems:

• Hydroponics is not as recognizable of a topic compared to other types of gardening systems, even though it is a more sustainable and reliable method of growing produce than geoponic systems.
• By operating a hydroponic system to grow our produce, we will be able to share the advantages it offers, ensuring hydroponics is more widely appreciated.
• Through educational workshops, we can showcase hydroponics and the direct impact it can have to reduce environmental impacts while improving food quality.
• -       By creating a hydroponic system and sharing our progress with the community, we are able to empower others to consider adopting hydroponics within their own localized initiatives in the future.

Create technical opportunities for students to expand on new skills:

• WLF gardens provides students with the opportunity to gain technical experience in engineering design and project management aspects outside of the classroom by allowing students the opportunity to design, construct, and operate an expandable hydroponic gardening system on SFU Surrey grounds.
• A hydroponic system allows for the promotion of cross-disciplinary collaboration as students from different faculties contribute their unique skills and experiences to a shared goal.

Current WLF Team Members:

Former Members:

• Calla Renaud (Electrical Team)
• James Wei (Electrical Team)