The rooftop greenhouse classrooms uses every inch of available space.
In the heart of New York City there is a public school with a very unusual story, and just the kind of inspirational message we love to share with our viewers. Led by Sidsel Robards & Manuela Zomora, the parents and educators at The Manhattan School for Children wanted to give their students a solid perspective of the environmental concerns that come from living in the city. They felt that by having a hands-on science experience in the areas of sustainability and conservation, they could make more educated environmental choices in the future. They decided that they wanted a science lab to do this while also connecting their city kids to nature.
The kids were great on camera and as Production Assistants.
They took this idea to New York Sun Works – a nonprofit known for their innovative environmental science programs. Sun Works helped the school develop a lab that would utilize urban farming as it’s main method of teaching and they built it in the only available space the school had – on the rooftop of the school building. The result was a 1400 square foot rooftop greenhouse with an emphasis on hydroponic and aquaponic growing systems. Here, students from K-8th grade, not only learn about the latest technology in urban agriculture, but how this all ties into the bigger picture of resource management, biodiversity, and even renewable energy sources and more.
Some of the NYC schools converted old classrooms into hydroponic farms.
This greenhouse project was so successful it has since developed into a citywide initiative with more science labs being built in public schools throughout the city. To date, 6 such labs have been installed with 11 more in the works around the city, with a goal of similar installations in 100 schools citywide. And these year-round urban farm labs are helping to create the next urban environmental stewards of the future, not only in New York City, but in cities around the world as word spreads about this highly successful and easy to replicate model.
For more information about this episode and related content, you might find these links helpful:
The Manhattan School for Children
NY Sun Works – The Greenhouse Project
Chef Nathan Lyon’s recipe for Pan-Roasted Halibut with Salsa Verde
About GGWTV
Growing A Greener World is a national gardening series on Public Television that features organic gardening, green living and farm to table cooking. Each episode focuses on compelling and inspirational people making a difference through gardening. This gardening series covers everything from edible gardening and sustainable agriculture to seasonal cooking and preserving the harvest.
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I watched the program “Growing a Greener World” on SDPB and was fascinated and excited to hear about this project. I’m an ELA teacher in a rural Junior/Senior High School in Freeman, SD. I’m going to share this project website with our English teacher but I’m interested to find out more.
Please provide me with more information about this project and how one might start one.
Thank you, Ginny Callahan
Hi Ginny. There are a couple of links on the show notes for this episode. If you scroll below the video player and the notes, you’ll come to the links. Click on those and I think you’ll get to where you need to go. I do recall they make their information available for all. It’s a great program!
I just saw season 4 episode one about the Manhattan School for Children’s hydroponic project. Fascinating! One thing that was mentioned issuing ladybugs and another creature to eat the aphid pests. It sounded something like californiacus.. Do you know what’s was? Thanks!
How could I get this kinda of program at my local school where do I start and how do I convince the schools to do this.
Thank you for including our school (Alain L. Locke Magnet School for Environmental Stewardship, PS208) in the episode 🙂 Integrated studies in sustainable farm education is AWESOME!!! Keep spreading the word. Kindest regards… Ms. Wong, Hydroponic Farm Teacher
It was our pleasure to include your school and class Ms. Wong! We’ll have a good quality video online later tonight that will be worth watching and sharing of the episode we came to film with you. We’ve just launched our new website and had a few bugs to work out, including poor video quality of this episode. But we’ve identified the issue so please watch it online anytime, starting later tonight and pass it on. Thanks for all you do to inspire your students for learning through gardening!
I hope you will be producing more episodes of “growing a greener world. I have really enjoyed watching this program.
Thanks Rob and we are! In fact, the first episode of season 4 premiered this past Saturday. But every PBS station could be different so you may not have the new episodes yet. But if you’re anxious to see the new shows almost as soon as they air on TV, you can watch them on our website about 2 days later. We just launched a brand new site so we are working out a few bugs, including the video quality of the episode playback on the web. So please bear with us but take comfort in knowing we have a whole new series now out and in production through October to bring you lots of new episodes. Thanks for your comment.
Something needs fixed – video hangs up on the Burpee’s commercial
Thanks Wanda. We’re looking into it. With the new website launch, these new bugs are annoying but expected. We are working hard to resolve them as quickly as possible. Thanks for letting us know.