Courses
Search for courses listed in this bulletin. To find a semester course schedule (including instructors, meeting times and locations), go to mynmu.nmu.edu.
- Offered: Fall Winter
This class provides an introduction into the fundamentals of indoor farming techniques and practices, with an emphasis on environment and climate control, energy consumption and sustainability, and productivity.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: IA 101 or concurrent enrollment.
This course focuses on learning how energy and matter are interconnected through each phase of plant growth and development by applying indoor farming methodologies and monitoring indoor environmental conditions.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: IA 130.
In this course, students will investigate the features of hydroponic farming, including chemical properties of water, solute concentrations, and nutrient fertilizers. Students will also evaluate energy efficiency, plant productivity, and nutrient output by comparing indoor growing systems.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: IA 130.
Students will examine historical, current, and future farming methods and evaluate reasons for growing food indoors in northern climates. Students will also apply life science and physical science concepts to growing food hydroponically by analyzing readings, participating in discussions, and reviewing data to grapple with their understanding of how science applies to food. Chemistry concepts are reinforced through hands-on labs that require students to test different substrates, create nutrient solutions, measure electrical conductivity & pH, and design and build their own custom indoor growing system.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: CN 278.
This course offers a more advanced look into building systems specifically geared towards the operation of Controlled Environment Agricultural facilities. Students will learn about general building codes and regulation processes which impact overall building designs and their components, as well as specific content regarding different water systems, mechanical equipment, lighting, and automated building controls systems. There is also a general overlying theme focused on building energy usage and conservation through building design, operation and production.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: IA 250.
This controlled environment agriculture (CEA) course builds upon students' knowledge of and experience with indoor agriculture systems and growing in controlled environment settings developed in NMU's IA AAS program. The focus will be on scaling up for commercial crop production, including hands-on experiences with daisy-chaining systems and evaluating yields and plant health and nutritional quality for production crops. Exploration of cutting-edge industry research will include testing growth of non-traditional crops, organic nutrient management, and microbial amendments.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: IA 340.
This course engages students in identification and management of the primary pathogens of concern to human health in fresh produce production. Students will plan for and implement the core principles of fresh produce food safety. Students study fresh produce food safety standards and voluntary certifications, resulting in a written fresh produce food safety plan.
- Offered: Fall Winter
- Prerequisites: IA 315 and senior status, or instructor permission.
This course offers students an in-depth view of typical property development processes and practices with an emphasis on market research, site analysis, regulations, financial analysis, and design parameters. Students work on individual and group projects that help put theory into practice to ultimately determine the overall feasibility of new development projects.