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NY Sun Works Announces Partnership with Green Mountain Energy Sun Club
NY Sun Works is thrilled to partner with Green Mountain Energy Sun Club to bring our hydroponic classrooms and Discovering Sustainability Science program to South Bronx Early College Academy and the Longwood Academy of Discovery in 2022!
The Sun Club, the non-profit branch of Green Mountain Energy, supports renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource conservation, and environmental stewardship – all with the goal of helping communities achieve long-term sustainability. Our deep thanks to Green Mountain Energy Sun Club for their support.
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NY Sun Works Joins Eric Adams’ Food Policy Transition Team
NY Sun Works Executive Director, Manuela Zamora, has been appointed to Eric Adams’ Food Policy Transition Team! The Food Policy Transition team is one of several committees Adams has convened on key policy issues to help prepare him for Day 1 as NYC’s new mayor. Joining Manuela on the Food Policy team are food policy and nutrition experts, policy-makers, non-profit leaders, and representatives from community gardens and commercial farms who are sharing their guidance and expertise. The committee is currently focusing on recommendations for improving urban agriculture in the city and we are thrilled to be working with this exciting group to map out the next administration’s priorities.
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US House of Representatives Presentation: NY Sun Works Goes to Washington
Last week, NY Sun Works presented before the U.S. House of Representatives Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC). SEEC, which is made up of approximately 70 Congress members working to address climate change, met on Dec. 9 to discuss issues related to urban agriculture. Manuela Zamora and Megan Nordgrén were excited to share how NY Sun Works is bringing science, sustainability and climate education through hydroponic farming to 180 NYC schools, and growing. Thank you to Rep. Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn for inviting us to participate in this informative and important conversation. While in DC, NY Sun Works met with several other local members of the House of Representatives and their staffs, including Rep. Grace Meng of Queens, Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens and Rep. Adriano Espaillat of Northern Manhattan, to discuss our program and the impacts we are having in schools throughout the NYC region. Special thanks to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, for hosting our team for an instructive and worthwhile meeting.
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PS 9 Lab Dedication in Honor of Beloved Teacher
On December 7th, NY Sun Works joined students, teachers, and local community members at P.S. 9 in Brooklyn for their official ribbon-cutting ceremony and the first harvest of their hydroponic farm-classroom. The classroom was made possible by Participatory Budgeting funding from City Council Member Laurie Cumbo, and is named after Sandra Santos-Vizcaino, the beloved science teacher who sadly passed away from complications due to Covid last March.
Principal Ali started by giving a heart-felt welcome to Ms. Santos-Vizcaino’s family, saying, “Your mother, sister, daughter and friend touched so many hearts and this lab will forever hold her spirit and her passion for science and for students. We’re so blessed to be able to share this space with you and to celebrate this with you. You have an open invitation, this is your home.”
Second grade students Roman and Jane shared their experiences in the new lab. “I’ve learned that you can use nutrients to grow plants and put them in ‘fake’ soil to make real soil! I’m most excited about tasting the strawberries when they are ready in the next few weeks!”
The last activity of the day was harvesting. NY Sun Works staff led a tasting for all the guests and students. Some of the produce harvested was purple kale, lettuce, basil, and spearmint. Students loved the tasting and many came up for seconds and thirds – one of them even exclaimed, “This is SO good!”
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NY1: Family Day at NY Sun Works Pop-Up at Astor Place!
NY1 Visited the wonderful and green NY Sun Works Pop-Up at Astor Place!
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Transforming Food Systems Through Education: NY Sun Works & Global Partners Develop EPIC Solution
NY Sun Works was selected to join the Food Systems Game Changers Lab, a global solutions accelerator organized by the Rockefeller Foundation, EAT, IDEO, and Thought for Food. The Lab tapped an international coalition of educators, entrepreneurs, and innovators to answer this question: How might we build a better food future for everyone, everywhere?
Over the 13 weeks Solutions Accelerator, the 505 participants from 85 countries came together, in cohorts organized by policy specialty, to create action agendas designed to build a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable global food system. NY Sun Works’ cohort, Building Food Literacy through Education, comprised of professors, advocates, and nonprofit leaders across the world, developed, literally, an EPIC solution. Education = Power in Choice, or EPIC, will use transformative education to engage children, their advocates (such as families, teachers, elders, and health practitioners), and their communities in sustainable, ecological and healthy food systems practices. EPIC’s goal: to empower a generation of highly-literate food citizens through school and community-based programming. View the final report and our solution here.
Our group is now speaking with regional, national, and global policy-makers, including the U.N. Food Programme, to explore how our solution can be scaled and developed. It’s been an honor to collaborate with this dynamic international group of innovators and we’re excited to see what comes next in this very important undertaking. As the final report states, “As we look to 2050, the mounting pressures to deliver affordable, available, accessible, nourishing, regeneratively and humanely produced diets will take unparalleled levels of global collaboration, agenda-setting, and innovation. To rectify these multiple and quickly expanding crises, we need much more than change – we need transformation.”
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NY Sun Works on NBC News 4: Using Plants and Farming to Teach NYC Students About Climate Change
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NY Sun Works on NY1: Non-Profit Holds Family Day Event at Pop-Up @ Astor Place
Spectrum News NY1: NY Sun Works Hosts Family Day at Pop-up Hydroponic Farm
Spectrum Noticias NY1: Organización sin fines de lucro celebra dia de la familia en su granja hidropónica
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NBCNewYork: Using Plants and Farming to Teach NYC Students About Climate Change
Students at a school in Harlem are learning about climate change through hydroponic farming. NBC New York’s John Chandler reports.
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The Results Are In: Our Hydroponic STEM Kits Are A Powerful Hands-On Learning Tool
Earlier this year, NY Sun Works partnered with Knology, a social science research organization, to assess the impact of our Home Hydroponic STEM Kits and Discovering Sustainability Science curriculum. We introduced the STEM Kit program in September 2020 to support hands-on science and sustainability teaching during remote and hybrid learning; between September 2020 and March 2021, our team assembled and delivered 12,500 kits to students from 79 schools!
We’re now thrilled to share the exciting results of Knology’s study: the Kits and curriculum conclusively bolster science knowledge and critical thinking skills and nurture students’ social-emotional well-being. As the Knology report, Impacts of NY Sun Works’ Discovering Sustainability Science, states, “At their core, the Discovering Sustainability Science curriculum and the Home Hydroponic Kits embody innovation, flexibility, hands-on learning, and critical thinking that meet the challenges of an uncertain education landscape created by the COVID-19 pandemic.” Further, “the NY Sun Works team was the engine for innovation and creativity in envisioning a resource that could cultivate students and educators during the pandemic.”
Download and read the full Knology report here: Impacts of NY Sun Works’ Discovering Sustainability Science
Knology’s evaluation incorporated interviews, focus groups, and a written survey encompassing all grade levels (elementary, middle, and high school) and a mix of new and returning teachers, to ensure a broad range of teacher feedback. Across all cohorts, teachers unanimously reported that the curriculum and kits effectively helped students learn science concepts and sparked students’ curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving skills. One teacher captured students’ overall response with the comment, “every time we did a lesson they wanted more.”
Teachers observed that having a plant to nurture at home provided much-needed social-emotional support in a trying time, giving students something positive to focus on and creating a sense of continuity for students who had previously used the Greenhouse classrooms at school. The benefits extended to students’ families, generating enthusiasm about using the kits and caring for the plants, and creating a shared learning experience and activity to participate in together during quarantine.
Teachers also reported that students became more curious about science in general, including expressing an interest in pursuing science-related activities in the future, and that the kits helped students feel more connected with nature — particularly important in a time when access to green space was highly limited.
We want to thank the NY Sun Works team for their incredible work developing, assembling, and distributing these valuable resources, and our thanks to Knology for their insightful report, which can be accessed here, and to our partner teachers for taking the time to provide such helpful feedback. The kits are back as a learning resource this year, and for more on how to order, please click here.
