ECOLIFE shares food produced from this system with local schools and assisted care facilities.  Because aquaponics is an ideal forum for illustrating real life science concepts we have developed educational materials and make our systems available to schools., zoos, museums and other public venues.  Some of these concepts include: the nitrogen cycle, the role of bacteria in ecology, water ecology, living systems, life cycles, the science of food production, and hydrodynamics.  ECOLIFE is currently collaborating with the University of California, San Diego Department of Mechanical Engineering on a project in aquaponics design efficiency.  Specifically the students will be studying how to move water with the least amount of energy and fine tune the function of the bell siphon, a key component of the ebb and flow function used in many of these systems.

ECOLIFE would like to offer individuals in assisted care facilities an opportunity to garden without the physical challenges of the conventional garden.  One advantage of aquaponics is that the plants are grown in a soil-less medium and the growing trays are adjustable, easily accommodating people who may not be able to bend down.  The fish are traditionally farmed for food, but they may also be kept as pets.

ECOLIFE, in collaboration with Limbe Wildlife Centre, proposes a program to build and teach about community-based aquaponics in Uganda to reduce critical bushmeat issues that are devastating forest habitats and the apes that depend on them. This program will 1) provide an aquaponics model at Limbe Wildlife Centre, 2) teach Ugandan villagers about aquaponics as an alternative sustainable protein source to bush meat, and 3) provide a means for Ugandan families to supplement their income with the selling of fish and produce from aquaponics at local village markets.

Aquaponics will improve the Ugandan's quality of life by providing a sustainable food source, reducing water use for fish farming and vegetable production, increasing family income and reducing bushmeat consumption.

The bush meat trade plagues Uganda’s critically endangered Cross River gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants, and other imperiled species. Many rural communities in Uganda hunt bushmeat, both to eat and to sell for a living.  As populations continue to grow in cities as well as in forest logging concessions and mining camps, demand for wild meat rises.  Aquaponics provides an animal protein alternative that is sustainable and will reduce the pressure on gorillas and other native wildlife of Uganda.

Large-scale commercial aquaponics are extensively underway in the United States.  ECOLIFE continues to encourage further development.  The current beleaguered state of the oceans mirrors the bushmeat crisis: current levels of commercial fishing are not sustainable.  Aquaponics could provide an alternative food source to our dwindling ocean fisheries.