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BROOKLYN NEWS
Borough President Adams met up with a student from Brownsville Collaborative
Middle School during a tour of the aquaponics and hydroponics systems
in the classroom farm utilized by PS 56 Lewis H. Latimer and Urban Assembly
Unison School in Clinton Hill.
Schoolyard Sprouts
More than a tree grows in Brooklyn.
The borough’s youngsters are growing
solutions to a healthier future.
In dozens of local schools, Borough
President Adams is cultivating educational
programs to transform students’
relationship with their environment and
sources of food. These children are getting
hands-on experience with learning
cutting-edge urban agriculture technology
such as hydroponics (growing
plants in water) and aquaponics (growing
plants in water with fi sh and other
life forms), as well as pollinator gardening
— green spaces where fl owers
provide nectar or pollen for a variety of
insects and animals that help nourish
the ecosystem.
“When children get their hands in the
dirt and appreciate fi rsthand its connection
to their daily lives, they develop
into healthy, well-rounded young people
who can share the valuable lessons
they’ve learned with their families,” said
Borough President Adams. “Teaching
our youngest Brooklynites in school
farms and gardens where they can directly
engage with the growing process
allows them to harvest the many fruits
of their labor, from nutritious produce to
better air quality.”
Last June, Borough President Adams
signed the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge at a
ceremony with second-grade students
at PS 29 John M. Harrigan, thereby
making Brooklyn the largest city in the
United States to commit to help save
the monarch butterfl y; alongside members
of the National Wildlife Federation
(NWF), he affi rmed his plan to enact a
range of educational and environmental
action items in the coming months.
The Cobble Hill school is a participant
in NWF’s Growing a Wild NYC
pollinator recovery program through
the leadership of science teacher Tina
Aprea Reres, herself a passionate gardener.
The yearlong program, funded
by New York Harbor Parks, engages
Photo Credit: Erica Sherman/Brooklyn BP’s Office
young people in kindergarten through
12th grade and their teachers, as well
as community volunteers, in creating
and restoring pollinator habitats in
their schools and local parks. Schools
in Carroll Gardens, East New York,
Gowanus, Gravesend, Prospect Park
South, Kensington, Madison, and Midwood
are also enrolled in this eff ort.
This blossoming project adds to
Borough President Adams’ already robust
agenda in classroom gardening,
launched by his three-year-old “Growing’s
Brooklyn’s Future” initiative that
has brought cutting-edge technology
to cultivate urban farming education in
classrooms across the borough.
To date, nearly $10 million of his capital
budget has been invested in more
than two dozen institutions throughout
Brooklyn, including school buildings
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bergen Beach,
Brownsville, Bushwick, Carroll Gardens,
Canarsie, Cypress Hills, East New York,
Gravesend, Mapleton, Marine Park, and
Sheepshead Bay.
Additionally, Borough President Adams
has established a partnership with
the New York Power Authority (NYPA)
to support New York Sun Works’ educational
curriculum at several Brooklyn
schools, including Edward R. Murrow
High School in Midwood.
Borough President Adams saw the
excitement fi rsthand on a student-led
tour last November at the co-located PS
56 Lewis H. Latimer and Urban Assembly
Unison School in Clinton Hill, where
he allocated $2 million toward a stateof
the-art courtyard greenhouse that
will have a growing capacity of 25,000
pounds of produce annually.
As with the existing third-fl oor classroom
farm at the school, this facility will
be created and operated through a partnership
with Teens for Food Justice, a
non-profi t organization that works with
teens to build their knowledge of growing
food and eating healthy.