Partners

Audubon New York’s For the Birds! is a place-based environmental education program that promotes awareness and appreciation of nature through the study of birds.

Impact: In FY21, For The Birds! (FTB!) NYC served 1,500+ individuals, and  partnered with communities that reflect the demographic diversity of New York underserved in environmental education.

Highlight(s):  Staff, Interns and Volunteers worked collaboratively to develop live and pre-recorded virtual lessons to meet all of our commitments during the pandemic and develop a curriculum box kit for students that lack access to efficient internet. With partners, a cohort of volunteers was recruited and managed our Bird Friendly Community (BFC) garden at the Sarah D. Roosevelt Park.

The Bronx River Alliance serves as a coordinated voice for the river and works in harmonious partnership to protect, improve, and restore the Bronx River corridor so that it can be a healthy ecological, recreational, educational, and economic resource for the communities through which the river flows. The Alliance works in close partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to achieve these goals.

Impact: Our pilot EELS (Environmental Enrichment and Leadership for Students) program was successfully launched. In the Summer of 2020 allowing 32 high school students to participate in small, socially-distanced field work such as water quality monitoring. In the Spring of 2021, 9 students from Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School participated in the program, utilizing virtual platforms such as iNaturalist to explore the Bronx River.

Highlight(s): Hosted virtual field trips with various schools in the Bronx and made curricula available to families and educators for use in at-home virtual lessons. Development of our EELS Program will continue, and look forward to restoring in-person field trips with local schools.

Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy (BBPC) has worked for over 35 years to bring Brooklyn Bridge Park to life by bringing together residents, government, and local supporters to transform Brooklyn’s abandoned waterfront into the beautiful park we know and love today.

Impact:  Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy (BBPC) top accomplishments include: adapting classes to be facilitated entirely online, developing a new class about plankton and pollution, and developing a suite of online learning materials for teachers, students and families.

Highlight(s): BBPC offers world-class events and activities for all interests and ages such as; environmental education, citizen science initiatives, waterfront workouts, kayaking, live music, theatre, dance and more.

Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) is an environmental education organization working creatively with youth to achieve equitable zero waste, climate-smart school communities, and a plastic free biosphere. Our school and youth programs foster youth led solutions by merging citizen science and civic action with media and the arts.

Their programs support students from predominantly low-income communities of color, provide an urgently needed voice to the environmental movement, facilitate leadership and advocacy roles that accelerate change and inform policy on environmental justice and the plastic pollution/climate crises. 

Impact:  In-person and remote students learned to survey and video-document plastic packaging of their “Grab & Go” and free meals, analyzed their data, then presented plastic reduction suggestions to school food directors and key stakeholders. These lessons were included in a free toolkit that launched in fall 2021. Their award winning movie, MICROPLASTIC MADNESS, featuring PS 15 in Brooklyn, reached 34,000 people in 39 countries.

Highlight(s): A new curriculum; DESKTOP LUNCH SURVEY - DATA + ACTION, was piloted with 9 classes, including grades 3, 4, and 5, and high school classes that focused on geometry and algebra.

The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF) was founded on the principle that education for sustainability is essential for today’s K-12 students. CELF programs use real-world problem solving to prepare students with the holistic thinking skills and motivation to become agents of change for a healthier, more stable and sustainable future.

Impact: Throughout the 2020-2021 school year, CELF expanded the Civic Science Inquiry to Action Program to additional schools in NYC, fully funding teachers in district three (D3) Schools and the Bronx and was offered as a 3 credit ASPDP (After School Professional Development Program) course. The Civic Science Program culminated in CELF’s first ever virtual student symposium.  

Highlight(s): 

• Led The Beacon School Environmental Club through the Inquiry to Action framework to implement their project-based air quality data project. 

• Conducted a mini course in partnership with Math for America focused on place-based learning.

City Growers uses urban agriculture to engage youth in experiential learning and nurturing a life-long relationship to food, their health, and the natural world. City Growers’ hands-on, original curriculum is designed to foster a love of nature, an understanding of the urban ecosystem, and empower New York City youth to be change-makers. 

Impact: In the 2020 - 2021 school year, City Growers pivoted to virtual programming and then entered into longer term in-school partnerships that allowed us to develop deeper relationships with students, teachers and schools. 

City Parks Foundation makes parks vibrant centers of community through sports, arts, community building, and environmental education programs for New Yorkers across all five boroughs. 

Impact:  This year City Parks Foundation programs had the following successes;

• Seeds to Trees implemented a 12 session distance learning program to 56 classes a total of 672 events/presentations reaching 1049 students in 9 schools

• Coastal Classroom After-school implemented an 8 session distance learning program in 4 sites a total of 32 events reaching 136 students from 30+ schools across the 5 boroughs

• Green Girls implemented 24 sessions of distance learning for over 102 students across all five boroughs.

Highlight(s): Introduced and presented Credit 101 and Financial Literacy workshops to all City Parks public high school and college interns.

Clean Green Music Machine (CGMM) mission is to inspire, activate and empower young people to lead towards a just  and sustainable environment for life on the planet.

Impact: This year the rFUTURE program was successfully executed in partnership with the Office of Sustainability and Theater Arts Production Company (TAPCo) school located in the Bronx. rFUTURE facilitates the empowerment of non-traditional music and filmmaking students’ voices in the quest for sustainability. Among the participants were students and teachers from four boroughs, multiple music industry mentors, a Grammy nominated host and over 11,000 views (and counting) of the final performance.

Highlight(s): CGMM proudly included District 75 and incorporated more accessibility for Spanish speaking participants in the program. The program transitioned to fully virtual experience this year which brought both challenges and rewards.

Climate Generation empowers individuals and communities to engage in solutions to climate change by igniting and sustaining the ability of educators, youth and communities to act on the systems perpetuating the climate crisis. Working to overcome disinformation, centering anti-racism and equity in education, and personalizing and localizing climate change action to move communities toward being more resilient to climate change impacts 

Impact: The Green Professionals (a training workshop for professionals that want to learn and talk about climate change in the work setting) was created this year in the Classroom program. Trainees are empowered;

• To see themselves as creators of climate change solutions

• To participate in climate change education

• To lead activities from our Green Careers for a Changing Climate resources

• To connect to the right information and resources and to become climate change leaders in their communities.

Highlight(s): Creation of the Green Professionals Program where professionals learn and talk about climate change in the work setting.

The Coalition for Healthy School Food (CHSF) introduces plant-based foods and nutrition education in schools to educate the whole school community about the health, environmental, and social justice issues of our food choices.

Impact: CHSF during the 2020 – 2021 academic year developed and taught a new Food Justice & Sustainability course to middle and high school students in NYC and State College, Pennsylvania. They also provided online plant-based cooking classes (with translation in Spanish and Mandarin) to a high-needs school in Brooklyn.  Participants each received a bag that contained all the recipe ingredients. 

Highlight(s): Provided seven weekly online classes for schools. (Fitness Challenge, Hip Hop & Health, Animal Pose Yoga, Animal Sanctuary Tours, and Let's Cook Dinner in English and Spanish.) Launched a new micro-greens project that provides everything needed for a classroom garden; seeds, soil, growing trays and an online training.

EcoRise inspires a new generation of leaders to design a sustainable future for all through student facing sustainability curriculum, local professional development for teachers, and access to a Student Innovation Fund.

Impact: EcoRise hosted 11 teacher professional development workshops, training over 100 teachers in sustainability and environmental justice. They awarded $6,439 in micro-grants for 12 student projects, supporting students in producing 1,300lbs of food, converting 6,000sq. ft. of public space, diverting 2 million pounds of waste from landfills, improving 1,000cu. ft. of air quality, and conserving 155 gallons of water.

Highlight(s): EcoRise successfully hosted three virtual Student Innovation showcases with students from Brooklyn Technical High School, P.S. 199, and I.S. 109Q, and launched a new curriculum suite; Introduction to Environmental Justice.

EVERFI is an international technology company driving social impact through education to address the most challenging issues affecting society ranging from financial wellness to mental health to sustainability and other critical topics.

Impact:  EVERFI provided sustainability education to NYC DOE schools through Sustainability Foundations; Plants, Animals, and Our World, a digital course that introduces students to the interconnectedness of environmental systems. In this first year;

Highlight(s): EVERFI invited schools to participate in a nationwide sustainability challenge where classrooms submitted proposals to make their lunchrooms more sustainable. P.S. 116 Elizabeth L. Farrell won the $10,000 grand prize to transform their lunchroom!

Garden Train, a Brooklyn District 15 School Gardens Consortium, shines the light on our gardens as a vehicle to grow community.

Impact: In 2021, Garden Train opened New York City's first Tool Lending Library for public school gardens.  The initiative was the result of a year’s-long process that involved participatory budgeting, elected officials, community partners, school communities and other school gardens advocates.  The Tool Lending Library promotes sharing of resources, supports existing school gardens and schools that have yet to establish gardens. 

Gowanus Canal Conservancy (GCC) is dedicated to facilitating the development of a resilient, vibrant, open space network centered on the Gowanus Canal through activating and empowering community stewardship of the Gowanus Watershed. 

Impact: During the 2020-21 school year, Gowanus Canal Conservancy (GCC) engaged 159 middle and high school students through 9 virtual community science field trips, 671 elementary school students through 28 virtual urban ecology field trips, 78 middle school students through two in person stewardship planting days, and 26 students, teachers, and community members through the Gowanus Blue Schools Design Challenge.

Green City Challenge presents hands-on games that teach children about sustainability. Their current focus is Middle Schools in the Bronx and Manhattan. 

Impact: Green City Challenge participated in the Sustainability Partner Engagement Forum in January, 2021 and began creating on-line educational materials to add allow for programming flexibility.

Highlight(s): Revamped their programming to be more flexible in the way it can be presented, in person, on-line, or a combination of the two. 

Green Bronx Machine builds healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and 21st Century workforce development. 

Impact: This year Green Bronx Machine hosted more than 200 online lessons and seminars, launched Let’s Learn with Mister Ritz in partnership with PBS (greenbronxmachine.org/letslearn). They also partnered with the DOE Office of Sustainability to outfit 10 Department Of Education (DOE) classrooms with indoor academic learning gardens. Hosted various dignitaries from home and abroad including the royal family from the UAE at CS 55 and Congressman Jim McGovern who named us a Model Program for the United States

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Highlight(s): Throughout the 2020-2021 school year, Green Bronx Machine remained available online and in person for academic support 6 days a week. This resulted in hundreds of online lessons, countless consultations, and dozens of in-person visits. 

GrowNYC School gardens inspires, promotes, and facilitates the creation of sustainable learning gardens in K-12 public and charter schools citywide. Since 2010, they have helped over 800 schools start gardens.  

Impact: Worked with NYC Housing Authority to establish three community gardens, start gardens at 10 surrounding schools, and provide a food access site at two of the three community garden locations.  

Since 2010, GrowNYC Zero Waste Schools (ZWS) has developed model recycling programs and designed unique and engaging educational materials for use at public schools throughout NYC. 

Impact: This year GrowNYC ZWS reached over 33 classes remotely with a new program focused on making the connection between the food system, waste - particularly food waste, and the climate crisis.   They also installed on-site compost systems at 4 schools. 

Materials for the Arts (MFTA)’s goal is to help people rethink the way they look at materials and waste.  Whether it is by visiting their warehouse for free materials, taking a workshop or attending a gallery opening, they strive to engage with and educate the public on the value and importance of Creative REuse. 

Impact: During the 2020-21 school year 1,592 public school teachers and 5,952 public school students were engaged through the Education Center’s in-person and virtual programs including field trips, in-school residencies, art gallery tours, and community workshops.

National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) mission is to unite all Americans to ensure that wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world by; connecting children to nature, fostering youth leadership and environmental stewardship with programs such as Eco-Schools USA programs, Schoolyard Habitats, Community Wildlife Habitats, and the Resilient Schools Consortium. NWF also offers opportunities for broader public engagement by convening the Climate and Resilience Education Task Force, and co-chairing the NYC Pollinator Working Group.

Impact: Created a new resources: Outdoor Learning Toolkit "Outdoor Learning NYC: A Toolkit for Schools", a new Urban Pollinator Curriculum "Growing a Wild NYC: A K-5 Urban Pollinator Curriculum", and a Schoolyard Habitats Planning Guide.

Highlight: National Wildlife Federation in New York City hosted 30 events that included virtual workshops, in-person stewardship events, convening with teachers and partners, and significant planning meetings for programs launching in the fall of 2021.

The Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based organization dedicated to restoring, revealing and revitalizing Newtown Creek. They work to restore community health, water quality, habitat, access, and vibrant commerce along Newtown Creek.

Impact: During the 2020-2021 school year Newtown Creek Alliance developed a suite of online resources, including Newtown Creek StoryMaps, educational videos, interactive learning tools and curriculum. These materials were developed and designed to provide opportunities for learners and educators alike to have access to place based learning virtually. Another major accomplishment was the collaboration on and development of two school gardens with support of the DOE Sustainability grant. 

Highlight: Events conducted with DOE schools were all related to the development and build out of the two school gardens, and met with students and teachers virtually and in-person to plan, share resources, garden preparation and planting. A School tour was conducted in one of the new gardens that concluded with an interview for the School’s blog.

The Farm to School program connects schools and community gardens with school lunch meals. The programs goals include influencing healthy food choices; increasing student consumption of fresh and locally-grown produce; supporting instruction on gardening and the local food system and raising awareness of the benefits of school gardening. 

Impact:  Successfully created a Farm To School (FTS) team, plus work with additional schools on the creation/development of the school garden projects. In addition, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program has also increased to approximately 75 schools for the 2021-2022 school year.

NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Education Office provides a wide range of free education programs, professional learning opportunities, and online resources for pre-K – 12th grade students and educators. DEP’s education programs and resources align with New York State and City learning standards, and cover a variety of environmental topics, including NYC’s drinking water, wastewater treatment, harbor water quality, green infrastructure, water conservation, sound and noise, climate change, and stewardship.

Impact: Conducted virtual field trips of Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility for over 2,500 students, and provided professional learning to over 350 educators on wastewater resource recovery, rain garden stewardship, water supply history, harbor water quality, and climate change. Designed four NYC Water Virtual Tours, featuring expert interviews, in the field footage, at-home activities, historical images, and interactive maps. 

Highlight(s): NYCDEP hosted 152 events (virtual, in-person, special annual programs, professional learning) for nearly 500 schools, engaging with more than 10,000 students and over 700 educators.

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (NYC DOHMH) Active Design in Schools program partners with local arts organizations to support NYC DOE schools through the creation of interactive indoor and outdoor murals to increase equitable access to physical activity opportunities in schools. The Active Design in Schools program promotes health and wellness in schools through a series of architectural and design strategies that encourage stair climbing, walking, bicycling, active learning, active recreation, and mindful movement. 

Impact: To adapt to the new COVID-19 needs of the school, the schools were offered ways to imbed social distancing into the active design space enhancements such as murals that encouraged students to play 6 feet away from each other or by using the murals to designate different stations for play that kept students a certain distance away from others.

Highlight(s): Schools now have the option to include social distancing measures in their murals to help with active recreation during Covid-19. The purpose of this is to make the program more relevant for the schools and aid in social distancing. 

The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) serves schools, families and underserved communities in the NYC area, offering informal, hands-on learning through various products and services that use the “design-make-play” method of bringing delight and play to educating science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Impact: NYSCI was able to pivot to fully remote programming to offer high-quality STEM programs for teachers, students, and families during this challenging year. Despite the museum being closed the entire school year, they were able to reach 2,500 teachers and 10,000 students through virtual programs and resources. 

Highlight: A particular highlight is the intensive, 20-session resilience and exhibit design after school program we offered to two cohorts of youth.  Participants learned about resilience in their communities and developed exhibit prototypes to communicate their ideas to others.

NY Sun Works builds innovative science labs in urban schools. Through our Greenhouse Project Initiative, they use hydroponic farming technology to educate students and teachers about the science of sustainability. 

Impact: NY Sun Works undertook several initiatives to support teachers and students during remote learning including offering virtual field trips and workshops to support teachers with remote instruction.  They also assembled& distributed 12,500 Home Hydroponic STEM Kits between September 2020 - March 2021, enabling students, with teacher guidance, to grow and study plants at home and practice their observation and data collection skills.

Highlight(s): NY Sun Works education team worked diligently to prepare distance learning units for every grade. This included a selection of lessons from Discovering Sustainability Science curriculum that do not require interaction with the hydroponic systems installed in the classroom, but connect to concepts, images, videos, and NY Sun Works reports. 

Queens Botanical Garden (QBG) is an urban oasis where people, plants, and cultures are celebrated through inspiring gardens and innovative educational programs. The educational workshops and tours they offer guide young participants through inspiring gardens and real-world applications of environmental stewardship. Learners of all ages use hands-on activities to explore topics from Honeybees to Biomes, and their instructors are noted for their wealth of knowledge about plants and animals as well as sustainable design and environmental stewardship principles. 

Impact: QBG offered virtual workshops and virtual tours to DOE schools, some private schools, and libraries around Queens, and a winter discount was offered to interested schools, with the goal of making our programming more accessible.  Small groups were also taught onsite – both tours and outdoor workshops to a handful of groups, including a spring break STEM program.  Instructors also taught curated virtual workshops, weekly, during CASA (Cultural After School Adventures) to 8 schools.

Highlight(s):  In March, QBG shifted programming to focus on observation of the outdoor world from the lens of staying inside, recognizing that a large number of city children who may live in apartments cannot explore the outdoors as freely as they could previously. Instructors lead wonderful, interactive online workshops with kids.

Sims Municipal Recycling (SMR) provides key service for NYC’s curbside recycling system, processing and putting to market more than 200,000 tons of municipally recycled metal, glass, and plastic each year. Additionally, each year the Recycling Education Center welcomes thousands of visitors of all ages, educating students and the general public on the inner workings of recycling, and how they may recycle more and waste less. 

Impact:  During the 2020 - 2021 school year, Sims Municipal Recycling, Recycling Education Center reached schools and students across the United States, from New York City and the Tri State area, to Texas to Hawaii. Virtual format allowed for greater flexibility in tour times, resulting in multiple school tours held daily, increasing the total number of school classes we reached this year.  

Solar One programs focus on the sustainability of local energy, water, food and materials systems. They also deliver educational content for the NYC Solar Schools Program, preparing NYC educators how to teach about clean energy in their classrooms.

Impact: Solar One developed new distance learning curriculum, delivered the NYC Solar School Program totally virtually - which increased access to teachers who often cannot take time off from teaching to attend, and launched interdisciplinary content that addressed important social issues during webinars and with guest speakers.

Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ) is a youth-led food justice movement working to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to fresh, healthy food and to end the cycle of health complications that is dramatically and unequally impacting low-income New Yorkers of color as a result of living in food deserts. TFFJ works with and trains students to maintain indoor hydroponic farms growing thousands of pounds of produce annually that is served at school lunch and distributed to surrounding communities.

 Impact: Due to Covid-19, TFFJ donated 1,200 pounds of student-grown produce to emergency food assistance providers across NYC. 

Highlight(s): TFFJ pivoted from growing food, to acting as a convener to procure in excess of 9,000 pounds of produce to be delivered to communities with the greatest need of emergency food assistance.

The Climate Museum is the first museum in the U.S. dedicated to climate change. Its mission is to inspire action on the climate crisis with programming across the arts and sciences that deepens understanding, builds connections, and advances just solutions. 

Impact: Climate Speaks 2020, a bespoke youth arts program, encouraged NYC metro area high school students to speak their truth about the climate crisis through a 6-month, creative writing and performance training program. Climate Art for Congress, a climate science, art and civics project, invited K-12 students to illustrate notes to members of Congress demanding a climate safe future.

Highlight(s):\ Moved to a virtual platform and applied an equity lens to all of their interactions.  Moving forward, the Climate Museum will reimagine their youth arts programming to provide onramps to a greater number of NYC youth and offer an expanded, creative forum for young people to get engaged with the climate crisis. 

The mission of the Horticultural Society of New York is to sustain the vital connection between people and plants. Our social service and public programs educate and inspire, growing a broad community that values horticulture for the many benefits it brings to our environment, neighborhoods, and lives.

Impact: Top accomplishments have been shifting programming to a virtual format and providing programming to an increased number of individuals especially during after-school hours.  Additionally, The Horticultural Society of New York offered virtual tours of their space to reach teachers and students that traditionally would not have been able to witness their greenhouse.

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.  The goal of WCS Education is to inspire a diverse, inclusive movement of conservation advocates by sparking connection with animals and nature; enhancing scientific literacy through hands-on investigation; and engaging constituents in stewardship and action to conserve wildlife and wild places.

 Impact: In the 2020-2021 school year, WCS worked with four school communities on sustainability efforts.  These activities included sustainability focused virtual field trips for students, virtual teacher professional development workshops, and virtual community events for families.  Students learned about issues of sustainability, project design, data collection, and the role that zoos and aquariums play in conservation efforts in and around NYC.