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CIVICSCITV: How students become ‘farmer scientists’ in hydroponic classrooms — From NYC to Birmingham

In this episode of CivicSciTV’s “Local Perspectives,” host Diya Dwarakanath interviews Manuela Zamora, executive director of NY Sun Works, a non-profit organization introducing hydroponic labs in classrooms serving over 140,000 students. Hydroponic classrooms are transforming K-12 science education by integrating sustainability, hands-on learning, and food access into the core curriculum. “What better than growing food in your classroom year round with your peers and the teachers and sharing that with your families?” asks Zamora.

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CBS NEWS: New York Sun Works Brings Nature into NYC Classrooms

Bringing nature into a classroom is one of the missions for an organization called New York Sun Works. CBS News New York’s Erica Lunsford visited a school in the Bronx and shows us how students are learning in a unique way.

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VERTICAL FARM DAILY: Bronx Hydroponic Classroom named after Trailblazing Botanist Marie Clark Taylor

NY Sun Works gathered with Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson, school leaders, teachers, parents and students at KAPPA MS 215 in the Bronx on April 28 for the ribbon cutting ceremony of a new hydroponic classroom designed to foster a love of science, nature and gardening among students.

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Birmingham City School Students get their First Taste of Hydroponic Farming this Fall

A First-Of-Its-Kind In The Nation, The Initiative Brings Innovative, Food-Based, Sustainability Science Education to 3,700 Birmingham Students in 8 Schools Through State-Of-The-Art Hydroponic Technology.

A $500,000 Investment Supports A National partnership between New York based NY  Sun Works and Birmingham based Jones Valley Teaching Farm to introduce project-based science learning focused on environmental stewardship while tackling chronic absenteeism and food insecurity.

BIRMINGHAM, AL – Jones Valley Teaching Farm, NY Sun Works, and Birmingham City Schools today announced a groundbreaking initiative to bring comprehensive hydroponic farming to eight Birmingham public schools for the first time. This initiative will provide a range of benefits to Birmingham City Schools students and the greater Birmingham community, including engaging hands-on learning that drives student attendance, new pathways to higher education and careers, and thousands of pounds of freshly grown produce that stays in the community. 

Each of the participating schools, including two middle schools, one K-8 school, and four elementary schools that all feed to the same participating high school, will be equipped with state-of-the-art hydroponic technology including growing towers, vine crop systems, seedling stations, and worm composting. Together, these provide a comprehensive, hands-on urban agricultural education experience. The six hydroponic classrooms and two hydroponic greenhouses are being designed and built by NY Sun Works, a NYC-based nonprofit recognized for delivering high-quality, standards-based sustainability education through advanced hydroponic systems. 

The initiative builds on Jones Valley Teaching Farm’s nationally recognized Good School Food education framework that brings hands-on, food-based education into the classroom, fostering joy and curiosity around STEM education alongside the powerful act of growing food. In their new Hydroponic Classrooms, students will learn how to grow plants such as leafy greens, herbs, and vine vegetables, seed-to-harvest, using just water and nutrients. 

“Our ultimate goal is to deliver food-based education to all 20,000 students in Birmingham City Schools,” said Jones Valley Teaching Farm Executive Director Amanda Storey. “This expansion allows us to reach more students and diversify how we use food as a foundation for learning by leveraging national resources to work alongside our trusted partners, Birmingham City Schools.”

Jones Valley Teaching Farm invited NY Sun Works to partner on this initiative based on their 15 years’ experience educating students in sustainability science through hydroponic farming. NY Sun Works has built and supported over 350 hydroponic classrooms in New York City, the nation’s largest public school system. They have also designed and implemented the associated curriculum, trained over 1,400 teachers, and now reach more than 140,000 students annually. 

In addition to the equipment and infrastructure, teachers will receive ongoing training in the NY Sun Works standards-aligned science curriculum that fully leverages the hydroponic systems and engages students in the joy of this new immersive learning experience. 

“At NY Sun Works, we are thrilled to partner with Jones Valley Teaching Farm and Birmingham City Schools to bring cutting-edge hydroponic farming technology and grade specific curriculum into the classrooms of Birmingham,” said NY Sun Works Executive Director Manuela Zamora. “This initiative will provide students with year round interactive learning experiences in sustainable agriculture, while also fostering a deep understanding and curiosity of STEM principles and environmental stewardship. Together, we’re cultivating a generation of farmer-scientists, innovators, and leaders in new careers who will lead the way toward a more resilient future.”

The following Birmingham City Schools are participating in the expansion: Jackson-Olin High School, Bush Hills STEAM Academy, Green Acres Middle School, South Hampton K-8 School, Central Park Elementary School, Charles A Brown Elementary School, Minor Elementary School, and Wylam Elementary School. 

“Expanding and diversifying food-based educational programming through hydroponics at the eight schools within the Jackson-Olin feeder pattern marks a significant next step in our partnership with JVTF. This expansion will allow 3,700 additional students to experience food-based education, double the number of interns receiving paid work-based learning opportunities, and create a local and sustainable produce procurement opportunity by integrating produce grown in the newly established learning labs into the schools’ cafeterias,” said Birmingham City Schools Superintendent Dr. Mark Sullivan. “We are preparing a new generation of state, national and world leaders in Birmingham City Schools. This initiative helps strengthen the foundation for our scholars’ future success.”

Seed funding from the City of Birmingham and Birmingham City Schools will support the acquisition, building, and installation of the technology and infrastructure of the labs curriculum, and teacher training. All new hydroponic classrooms will open on the first day of school on August 7, 2025. 

“This is a game-changing opportunity for our students,” said Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin. “With paid high school internships and college apprenticeships, they will receive valuable work-based learning experiences that are aligned with state educational standards and workforce readiness goals. This is an important step in preparing the next generation of leaders in agriculture, environmental sciences, and technology. I am thrilled that Birmingham students will be leading the way.”

This program will bring a variety of benefits to Birmingham City Schools and the greater Birmingham community, including:

Tackling Food Insecurity with Year-Round Harvesting: With over 70% of Birmingham residents lacking access to quality, affordable, nutritious fresh food, this initiative leverages Controlled Environment Agriculture through hydroponic technology in the classroom to cultivate and harvest produce year-round. The implementation of hydroponic systems in classrooms will increase yield potential by up to three times compared to traditional farming, all while using up to 95% less water. Collectively, the new classroom hydroponic systems are expected to produce up to 4,000 pounds of fresh produce annually, which will stay in the local community.

Addressing Chronic Absenteeism Through Hands-On Learning: Chronic Absenteeism has been a nationwide challenge, following the COVID-19 pandemic, after which it nearly doubled. While Birmingham City Schools has achieved significant progress in bringing students back to school post-Covid (Birmingham City Schools absenteeism rates: 29.09% in 2022, 23.35% in 2023, and 13.64% in 2024) this initiative aims to continue that systemwide trend and is being implemented intentionally in schools that are looking for new tools to address higher rates.  

Project-based learning generally has been correlated with higher attendance levels as well as higher test scores and the development of social and emotional faculties. Both Jones Valley Teaching Farm and the NY Sun Works programs have made substantial contributions to improving student outcomes. For example, a survey of families who participate in existing Jones Valley Teaching Farm programs showed that 100% of their students were more excited to attend school on days with JVTF programming. In existing NY Sun Works Hydroponic Classrooms, 94% of teachers have reported stronger awareness and appreciation for the environment and 92% of teachers reported students actively engaging in science.  

Expanding STEM Pathways and Career Opportunities: Birmingham has one of the lowest economic mobility rates in the nation. Participating high school students will be able to obtain credentialing, career and technical education, and exposure to expanded career and postsecondary pathways. Overall, this initiative will expose and train our future workforce for the next-generation tech and controlled environment agriculture, green tech, and other related industries; turning today’s students into the farmers and scientists of the future.  

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About NY Sun Works

NY Sun Works is an education not-for-profit building Hydroponic Classrooms in city schools to engage K-12th grade students and educators in hands-on, standards-based sustainability and climate education. Through our Hydroponic Classrooms, we bring high-quality science pedagogy to the communities where it’s most needed, providing hands-on learning experiences that cater to all types of learners. Our curriculum transforms students into Farmer Scientists, the environmental innovators who will take on our 21st-century climate challenges. Our first Hydroponic Classroom opened in 2010; today, we are partnered with over 350 schools and reach over 140,000 students annually in New York City and the metro area.

About Jones Valley Teaching Farm 

Founded in 2002, Jones Valley Teaching Farm (JVTF) is a Birmingham, AL-based non-profit organization that operates vibrant, student-centered Teaching Farms and the Good School Food

Education and Pathways Framework. Using food as a foundation for education and environmental stewardship, pre-K-12 youth discover the joy of learning through immersive lessons at JVTF Teaching Farms and the Center for Food Education. JVTF’s Youth Pathways and Experiences initiative offers Birmingham youth paid work-based learning and enrichment opportunities to explore and identify pathways to employment and higher education. The Center for Food Education connects these resources to the larger Birmingham community and state, serving as an educational resource and destination and increasing JVTF’s reach and impact.

About Birmingham City Schools

Birmingham City Schools is a public school district in Birmingham, Alabama, that serves over 19,000 students. The district operates 43 schools, including 20 elementary schools with grades PreK-5, seven schools with grades PreK-8, eight middle schools, seven high schools, an alternative program, a newcomer center and a K-12 virtual school. For more information, visit https://www.bhamcityschools.org.

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WBRC6: 8 Birmingham schools using hydroponics technology

Spring has sprung and can continue blooming all year long in the classrooms of eight Birmingham schools using hydroponics technology through a new collaboration between Birmingham City Schools, Jones Valley Teaching Farm and New York nonprofit New York Sun Works.

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HARLEM WORLD: Students At Hunter College Elementary School Get Their First Taste Of Hydroponic Farming

Hunter College Elementary School now counts among over 350 schools across New York where you can find a classroom dedicated to hydroponic farming. Thanks to the new program, students will learn how to farm crops in an urban setting from seed to table, using up to 90% less water than soil-based agriculture in the process. Along the way, they will engage with the most important ethical and scientific questions facing global crop production thanks to the NY Sun Works Discovering Sustainability Science Curriculum.

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HARLEM WORLD: New York Students Visit Albany To Advocate For Climate Education Access

A dedicated group of high school and college students from New York City and upstate New York traveled to Albany to meet with legislators to encourage support for climate education.

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QUEENS GAZETTE: NY Sun Works Opens New Hydroponic Farm At PS 144Q

NY Sun Works gathered with elected officials, school leaders, teachers, parents and students at PS 144Q Col. Jeromus Remsen Elementary School in Forest Hills for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Hydroponic Classroom designed to foster a love of science, nature and gardening among students.

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Can Project Based Learning Reduce Chronic Absenteeism?

It is a valid question that teachers across New York are asking: How can we as educators improve the lives of children if they are not attending class? 

In the 2022-2023 school year, approximately 1 in 3 students across New York State were chronically absent from school.1 Shocking as this number sounds, the picture emerging from schools in our city is worse, with chronic absenteeism rates of 43.1 percent, an increase of almost 10% from the previous year.2 

Looking outside of New York to the country at large, a recent study claims that about one in ten districts reported chronic absenteeism levels of 30 percent or more and another two in ten districts reported rates between 20 and 30 percent in the 2023–2024 school year.

The drivers of this worrying phenomenon are far from straightforward. Scholars cite the legacy of COVID, before which absenteeism rates were falling throughout NYC public schools. “If the pandemic was an earthquake, the subsequent rise in absenteeism has been a tsunami that is continuing to disrupt learning,”3 said Thomas Kane, a Professor of Education at Harvard University.

Structural factors, such as historical segregation, poverty, unpredictable work schedules, and interactions with the justice system also take much of the blame.4 Given this reality, the challenge for schools is that much of the work to help address chronic absenteeism falls outside of their purview. 

“If the pandemic was an earthquake, the subsequent rise in absenteeism has been a tsunami that is continuing to disrupt learning.”

– Thomas Kane, Professor of Education at Harvard University

The impacts are severe and well documented: A recent study in California found that only 17 percent of students chronically absent in both kindergarten and 1st grade were proficient readers by the end of 3rd grade compared to 64 percent of their peers. When children from marginalized families, (those most likely to be chronically absent) fall behind, they are less likely to have the resources to make up for lost time.5 Students who are chronically absent in early years of school tend to remain chronically absent and perform less well on test scores in later years.6 Clearly, absenteeism leaves a legacy that is hard to address.

Definition of Chronic Absenteeism

Why is Chronic Absenteeism so Hard to Tackle?

It all begins with how we measure school attendance; the most common measure is Daily Attendance. This approach, while crucial, often fails to reveal important absenteeism related issues. It is easiest to illustrate this point using a real world example: If you have a school of 200 students with 95 percent average daily attendance, 30 percent (or 60) of the students could be missing nearly a month of school over the course of the school year. In other words, relying exclusively on Average Daily Attendance rates prevents school staff from determining whether that 5% average absence rate is due to many students missing a few days (normal) OR a small but still significant minority of students missing many days7 (cause for concern).

While solutions exist to solving the absenteeism crisis, often they require community-wide solutions to  address other pressing problems such as access to transport, healthcare, and fresh food.8 School staff may be left with the sense that there is little they can do, removing the agency of one of the primary interest groups trying to address chronic absenteeism.

What Actions can Schools Take?

Despite the challenges noted above, educators are far from powerless in confronting this reality. A recent article on Chalkbeat lays out a number of approaches which schools across the city are piloting. These center around better data collection, early intervention and peer to peer support. Beyond these measures, research suggests that Project Based Learning (PBL) curricula can also raise attendance across all ages and socioeconomic levels.9 

Definition box explaining Project Based Learning

Recent studies show a direct correlation between project-based learning and higher attendance levels. PBL also leads to higher test scores and develops social and emotional faculties. Intuitively, these findings make sense; PBL tends to be more applicable and relatable, bridging a student’s outside life with what they are learning in school. A report by the University of Michigan supports this claim, citing the ease of engaging students with PBL.10 

Furthermore, another study showed a direct correlation between PBL and positive attendance trends, particularly in economically disadvantaged communities.11

How can Hydroponic Classrooms Help?

At NY Sun Works, we bring a hydroponic and aquaponic PBL curriculum for schools to implement in their STEM classes. Lessons include our Farming Foundations curriculum, offered from K-12, through which students learn the science behind hydroponics and how to grow their own food from seed to harvest in the classroom. What really highlights NYSW’s PBL curriculum as a chronic attendance preventive measure is the presence of living, growing plants in the classroom.

The Yale Ledger recently published an extensive list of benefits of green spaces in schools, including the improvement of cognitive and learning development, social emotional development, memory, and concentration.12 But green spaces in classrooms are also beneficial to attendance. A study found that greener schools not only have better academic outcomes, they also have higher attendance rates.13 Our partner schools’ Hydroponic Classrooms can and should play a role in helping address chronic absenteeism.

Students at August Martin High School in Queens, NY harvest cucumbers from a vine crop system.

Policymakers and educators seeking to improve chronic absenteeism in NYC can look at the addition of Hydroponic Classrooms in schools as not only a way to strengthen STEM education, but to provide tools and agency to schools addressing chronic absenteeism. By providing schools with a hydroponic and aquaponic project-based learning curriculum, our work can aid in solving the chronic absenteeism crisis NYC public schools have been experiencing and help reverse the troubling trend post-COVID.

Author: Ganesh Mejia-Ospina

Author Bio: Ganesh Mejia is a third year undergraduate studying Mathematics and Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He interned for NY Sun Works in the summer of 2024, where he researched and wrote articles on climate policy, the impact of chronic absenteeism, and food insecurity on youth education outcomes. In his free time, Ganesh is a passionate soccer fan and player. He also likes birding, reading, and film.

  1. https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/missing-school-ny-chronic-absenteeism.pdf ↩︎
  2. https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/missing-school-ny-chronic-absenteeism.pdf ↩︎
  3. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/02/u-s-students-need-to-start-showing-up-pandemic-covid-learning-loss/ ↩︎
  4. https://www.cityhealthdashboard.com/blog-media/chronic-absenteeism-trends ↩︎
  5. https://www.attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chronic-Elementary-Absenteeism-A-Problem-Hidden-in-Plain-Sight.pdf ↩︎
  6. http://www.nccp.org/publication/present-engaged-and-accounted-for-the-critical-importance-of-addressing-chronic-absence-in-the-early-grades/ ↩︎
  7. https://www.attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chronic-Elementary-Absenteeism-A-Problem-Hidden-in-Plain-Sight.pdf ↩︎
  8. https://www.attendanceworks.org/chronic-absence/the-problem/ ↩︎
  9. https://www.lucasedresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MLPBL-Research-Brief-1.pdf ↩︎
  10. https://record.umich.edu/articles/project-based-learning-yields-better-student-outcomes-studies-show/ ↩︎
  11. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/ijpbl/article/view/28336 ↩︎
  12. https://campuspress.yale.edu/ledger/thinking-green-why-schools-should-have-natural-spaces/ ↩︎
  13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6388261/ ↩︎

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VERTICAL FARM DAILY: Senator, US Representative attend ribbon-cutting for hydroponic classroom

On February 14th, NY Sun Works gathered with Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, school leaders, teachers, parents and students at Thomas Edison High School in Queens for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new hydroponic classroom designed to foster a love of science, nature and gardening among students. U.S. Representative Grace Meng and a representative for Assembly Member David Weprin also joined the celebration of this new resource in their community.

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