NY Sun Works COVID-19 Update

March 22, 2020

Dear Friends of NY Sun Works,

We hope you’re staying healthy, active, and safe. With NYC schools closing this past week, the NY Sun Works crew has been working hard to support our partner schools, in particular our teachers, to temporarily close their Greenhouse Classroom systems and to prepare to teach remotely.

Following DOE and CDC recommendations, our maintenance team acted on a school-by-school basis to either close down labs (remotely or in person), coordinate support with volunteer teachers and custodial staff, or plan for future access to keep labs running, particularly in schools with aquaponic systems/fish-farms in operation.

Our Education team is working diligently to prepare Distance Learning Units for every grade. This includes a selection of lessons from our Discovering Sustainability Science curriculum that do not require interaction with the hydroponic systems installed in the classroom, but connect with them through concepts, images, videos, and NY Sun Works reports. The lessons will be available through the NY Sun Works Learning Center, our online teacher hub. We are initially focusing on K-5th and 6-8th grade lessons, which will be available this week. High school learning options also will be available at the Learning Center soon.

This is “business unusual” and we are here to support our teachers every step of the way.

Times like this underscore the critical need for our students – and our policymakers – to understand and respect science.  A solid science education will allow our students to make informed decisions in the future that impact their lives and the community around them. We hope that our hands-on program will help to inspire today’s students so that they may one day become farmers with technical skills to feed our growing urban population, or the doctors and scientists finding the vaccines and cures for future crises.

From all of us at NY Sun Works, we thank you for your continued support.