A FUN AND ENLIGHTENING DAY AT THE JAVITS CENTER BY ISRAEL COFIELD BREHON JR.

June 4, 2025

On May 2nd, 2025, my class from JHS 218 in Brooklyn went to the Jacob Javits Convention Center to participate in the 2025 NY Sun Works Youth Conference. The day started with my class taking the A train from Euclid Ave in Brooklyn to Manhattan’s 34th Street. When we got near the building we saw people greeting us with signs directing us towards the entrance.

When we got inside, we were assigned different seats. As a press member, I was on Team Basil. During each presentation I took notes on a clipboard. Following the presentations I had the opportunity to conduct three separate interviews with two groups of student presenters and Alexis Harley, Chief Risk and Resilience Officer with the New York Power Authority (NYPA).

The first group of student presenters were Adil, Ihaan, Zaiyan and Jannat from PS 214 Michael Friedsam. The title of their presentation was Finding an Alternate Substrate. I asked them “How many tests or experiments did you do to come up with your substrate?” They replied that they had completed many tests to find their substrate.

In my second interview with Alexis Harley from NYPA I asked, “How did you know that this job was the right one for you?” Ms Harley said: “I didn’t really know. I jumped around from job to job, when I got to this one, I just had a feeling, this was the one.”

The third and final group I interviewed was Rex, Kali and Nahuel from The Brooklyn Brownstone School. Their presentation was entitled: Pepper Perfect 2.0. The first question I asked was, “What was the hottest pepper?” Their answer was, “The world’s hottest pepper is called Pepper X.” The second question I asked was,”How many different types of peppers are there?” Their answer was, “There are a variety of different peppers.”

After the interviews, we went on a Farm Tour on the roof of the Javits Center. On the tour we visited two locations. The first place we visited was the outdoor section, where we saw many different plants. The guide told us about how bees were more active there during the summer. Afterwards, we visited the greenhouse towards the northern tip of the building. It had large air conditioners on the walls. The guide talked about how the greenhouse worked. We walked a bit more and found ourselves at some different plants. We saw strawberries and a plant called the Kangaroo Paw Plant. After the visit to the greenhouse, we went back to the auditorium to take pictures.

In conclusion, that was my full experience at the NY Sun Works 2025 Youth Conference. It was a very fun and enlightening experience. I learned a whole lot, like how you can use different substrates to grow plants. Also, what the hottest pepper was and how there are a large variety of peppers. Another thing I learned is how they are measured by “SHU” or in other words, Scoville heat units.