Hydroponics should be taught to schoolchildren in the first grade in every school. It’s a wonderful way to convey science and for kids to see the fruits of their experiments.
Hydroponics may be fun for hackers. But it's a bastardized form of growing plants, that happens to work, but it's a terrible way to convey science (if not taught very carefully and embedded in a much larger picture with actual nature).
Schools should visit more farms instead.
Seeing a growing a plant in a glass from a seed over multiple weeks does just that.
Once You understand / see for yourself why plants need water, air and nutrition, You'll see that farm in a completely different way.
Schools should drop children in a forest and let them fight bears for berries. If it was good enough for 40,000 generations of hominids it's good enough for me.