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Photo Credit: Stefan Ringel/Brooklyn BP’s Office
Borough President Adams unveiled “Growing Brooklyn’s Future,” an initiative with more than $2 million in initial investment to create hydroponic classrooms
for a dozen schools across Brooklyn, inside a classroom at the Academy of Urban Planning in Bushwick; joined by Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Diana
Reyna, leadership from New York Sun Works, as well as local principals and students, they held honorary checks with the seal of Brooklyn Borough Hall, as
well as an oversized check, made out to “One Brooklyn.”
Pipeline Education: A New Path to Prosperity
College and career success both
require extensive preparation, as students
consider their choices after
graduating from high school. Borough
President Adams wants Brooklyn students
to have the resources available
to focus their ambition, develop their
skills, and succeed in any of their pursuits.
To build the foundation for success,
he has advanced the “pipeline”
concept, an approach to education that
better focuses on the acquisition of the
skills required to become an artist, a
doctor, or an engineer.
“In order to prepare our students for
success, we must offer them an education
that matches the unique challenges
of the 21st century economy,”
said Borough President Adams. “This
is a true research and development administration,
in which we are not afraid
to tackle big problems with outsidethe
box pilot approaches that have
game-changing potential. I have a vision
for pipelines that provide direction
to young men and women, preparing
them step-by-step to reach their full
academic potential. Pipeline education
will connect the students of today to
the careers of tomorrow.”
Borough President Adams has
forged a partnership with Medgar
Evers College (MEC) in Crown Heights
to expand the Brooklyn Pipeline, which
has delivered enrichment and developmental
learning opportunities to more
than 1,000 public school students,
taught hundreds of parents to better
support their children’s education, and
facilitated professional development
training to teachers and school leaders
in partnership with more than 80
schools across the borough. Since the
launch of the Pipeline in the summer of
2014, the percentage of MEC first-year
students required to complete remedial
coursework has decreased by nearly
20 percent. For Borough President Adams,
a native of Brownsville, his commitment
to students in underserved
neighborhoods is personal, making
this pipeline effort particularly impactful
to him.
“Our partnership with MEC has fostered
a unique educational solution to
previously intractable challenges in
central Brooklyn and throughout the
borough,” said Borough President Adams.
“There are, unfortunately, many
students who complete high school —
or are unable to finish — without a plan
for the future, without preparation to
start a job or study in college. We need
to connect these students to resources
that will allow them to develop as talented
individuals who have the ability
to contribute to Brooklyn’s future,
starting in kindergarten and earlier. We
cannot afford to wait until the senior
year of high school to provide direction
to our young people.”
As MEC continues the Pipeline program,
Borough President Adams has
announced he will increase his commitment
to provide resources in Fiscal
Year 2017 (FY17), which will build on
the Pipeline’s success, allowing students
and families in the program to
receive comprehensive academic support
from kindergarten through college.
To support the Pipeline, Borough
President Adams has allocated more
than $3 million in capital grants to 14
participating schools, funding science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) educational infrastructure
such as technology centers and
science labs.
Borough President Adams has created
other pipelines in Brooklyn to connect
students to experiences in STEM.
This year, he is set to launch the South
Brooklyn Engineering Pipeline in collaboration
with Kingsborough Community
College in Manhattan Beach to
provide students at the college and five
local public schools in Brighton Beach,
Coney Island, and Gravesend with a
program that offers training in both the
theory and the practice of engineering.
Borough President Adams provided
more than $1.8 million from his capital
budget and Stratasys, a company
that creates 3D printers, provided their
technology, which will allow students
to learn to develop a prototype and become
manufacturers.
Additionally, alongside nonprofit
New York Sun Works, Borough President
Adams has established Growing
Brooklyn’s Future, an initiative to build
green classrooms at a dozen schools
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville,
Bushwick, Canarsie, Cypress Hills, and
East New York that involve students in
the science of agriculture, which has
many applications in other fields of science,
and the value of sustainability.
“Brooklyn is getting back to its
roots as we move into a greener future,
growing healthy food and talented
students in the same classroom,” said
Borough President Adams. “In the
spirit of One Brooklyn, we are planting
seeds of opportunity in every neighborhood,
and innovation and progress will
flower across our borough from stems
of success that are grounded in STEM
education.”
Growing Brooklyn’s Future provides
each school with hydroponic equipment
that allows students to cultivate
vegetables in the classroom, learning
the techniques of agriculture and the
processes that allow plants to grow,
for which Borough President Adams
provided $2 million from his capital
budget. He ultimately hopes that these
schools and other schools in Brooklyn
will create a greenhouse to expand
access to urban agriculture, as has
already occurred at PS 84 José de Diego
Magnet School for Visual Arts and
Sciences in Williamsburg where, with a
$133,000 grant from the capital budget
of Borough President Adams, a greenhouse
science laboratory that offers a
comprehensive education in agricultural
science has been established.
As Borough President Adams continues
to build pipelines for Brooklyn
students, he hopes young men and
women will have a streamlined path to
prosperity, with opportunities to prepare
them for the 21st century economy
and achieve their dreams.