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.
Amanda Storey is the Executive Director of Jones Valley Teaching Farm, and says their relationship with Birmingham City Schools reaches back 12 years, integrating gardens in outdoor classrooms with Alabama Core Curriculum.
“Mostly on the east side in the Woodlawn feeder pattern, we’ve built out outdoor teaching farms, and we have long tried to figure out how we can continue to expand across the system,” said Story.
So, when an opportunity opened up to do something different with hydroponics and expand to schools on the west side of Birmingham, it was a no-brainer.
Storey said, “We’re so excited to find a resource in New York. Sun Works, who had already perfected this idea of building out kind of farm labs, or science labs inside school. We use the engagement tool that food is as a way to teach math and science and social studies to work with Birmingham through the Alabama Course of study, so we know that that’s important, but we also know that when we connect young people to their food source, they have a skill for the rest of their lives that they will be able to feed themselves, their families.”
New York Sun Works installed the hydroponics labs right before spring break, so students will be returning to classes this week to a whole new exciting way to learn.
Spencer King and his crew installed the lab at Minor Elementary. Tables and towers are sprouting with peppers and greens and tomato plants, all without the usual potting soil.
King explained, “They are recirculating water through a system that pumps it from reservoir up into a water distribution channel… spraying out into some buckets, all of that gets recirculated back into the reservoir, and it’s providing the nutrients that are in the water to all of the plants. So, it’s contained and gives us about 90% less water than standard agriculture.”
King says New York Sun Works is in about 350 schools in the New York City Area, and now eight more in Birmingham.
King said, “We build and maintain hydroponic systems in school classrooms to teach about science. The process of growing food from seed to harvest, all within a classroom just like this one.”
Clarissa Reese is the Director of Post Secondary Success for Birmingham City Schools, and sees this partnership as a win-win.
We were reminded about just how important the Jones Valley Teaching Farm garden at Woodlawn High School was to the surrounding community, feeding neighbors during the pandemic.
The hydroponic labs are now in all the feeder schools leading up to Jackson-Olin High school, which has a Horticulture Academy.
Reese says this is another way the district is in step with the needs of the community.
“So, our students will be able to make a really informed decision about whether that is a pathway that they want to pursue once they arrive at Jackson-Olin High School. I think that this will really open their eyes and help them to understand what all that entails, and all of the different career pathways that are possible through that pathway as well. So we will just have a whole section of town that’s really informed in that way, and able to expand that at Jackson-Olin High School and beyond, if they so desire,” said Reese.
The district says the initiative is funded through a $500,000 seed commitment split by the City of Birmingham and Birmingham City Schools to diversify food and tech-based education, engaging hands-on experiences that inspire students, and joyful learning opportunities.
Jackson-Olin High School students will be able to obtain credentialing, career and technical education (CTE), and exposure to expanded career and postsecondary pathways.
Storey believes together with Birmingham City Schools, Jones Valley Teaching Farm is helping to “build the next generation of leaders who are going to care for each other, and care for the Earth, and care for the cities that they hopefully will be running in a different way because of that food-based education, and our goal is to reach all 20,000 students in Birmingham City Schools.”
For more on New York Sun Works, go here.
