Innovation in Education with Green Bronx Machine
Passionate educators always look for new ways to have a positive impact on their students. With over 20 years’experience in teaching and administration, Stephen Ritz is one of those passionate educators. He started the Green Bronx Machine at CS 55, serving over 700 students, pre-K through fifth grade, based on an idea that healthy students help drive healthy schools and, Ritz says, “these healthy schools become the heart of a healthy community.”
In the county with the least favorable health outcomes in New York State, Ritz’s innovative programming launched as he began to address his own health crisis, and quickly realized the correlation between what you eat and how it affects your health. He also realized the lack of access to good food in the neighborhood of his school.
“Children cannot be well read if they’re not well fed,” he states as one of his pithy mantras.
As the self-proclaimed CEO (Chief Eternal Optimist) of the Green Bronx Machine, where they are “dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope,” Ritz introduced the National Health, Wellness and Learning Center at CS 55. He and his wife, Lizette, run their programming as volunteers. He also serves as the executive director here for STEM and STEAM (educational standardized instruction focused on science, technology, engineering, math, and the arts).
“In the Bronx, we have touched thousands of students and have a network of tens of thousands more. Our curriculum is being used across the country and around the world—in fact, reaching more than 30,000 students in Canada alone, including six First Nations tribes. Here, in the Bronx, we service the entire school at CS 55—700 plus,” says Ritz.
Ritz says it bears noting that “The State University of New York at Potsdam uses our curriculum to train teachers in all content areas and we are creating a pipeline of urban and rural educators growing high-performing schools and happy, healthy children.”
Via their Green Bronx Machine Institute, partnering with the NYC Department of Education, Ritz has also just trained 25 teachers and will now be expanding the program citywide.
At CS 55, Ritz started an on-site school garden with raised beds, installed tower gardens in the classroom (which use 90% less water than conventional growing methods, particularly important in areas where resources are scarce), helped develop a branded, portable kitchen on wheels he uses at the school, and is growing vegetables with students in the “Food For Others Garden” on a decommissioned Bronx street. The extensive bounty of fresh corn, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and more harvested at the Food For Others Garden is distributed to cancer patients from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; to Part of the Solution, an organization that helps low-income individuals and families; and to senior citizens living in NYC public housing, providing a real sense of purpose for the students’ nurturing of the plants.
This summer, Sodexo was one of the key sponsors of the Green Bronx Machine’s Summer Culinary Garden workforce development camp, providing the all-inclusive camp at no cost for 25 students. Ritz calls the students his #STEMINISTS, and in the camp students engage in many daily activities. They cook from scratch, learn new vocabulary words, exercise, are introduced to sustainable vocations, and farm.
Field Trips
During one of their summer field trips, students traveled to visit a Gotham Greens facility in Brooklyn. Founded in 2009, Gotham Greens, a pioneer of urban agriculture, has led the regional production of greenhouse-grown vegetables and herbs.
Nicole Baum, Gotham Green’s director of marketing and partnerships, says they visit with Ritz and students each quarter and worked together to create a recipe for vegetable wontons, using greens from their farms.
“For us, it’s really about partnering with local organizations to make a positive impact on the environment and community. We donate seeds and seedlings to local wellness and environmental organizations with education programs throughout New York City and Chicago,” and continues, “and it’s an honor to be able to be a part of such a valued community, with Stephen and Lizette.”
Farther afield, students met Gregory Payne, executive chef for Sodexo at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC. During July, Sodexo sponsored and hosted a group of 11 Green Bronx Machine students, rising third, fourth and fifth graders, aged 7–10. For many, it was their first time out of the Bronx; for all of the students, it was their first trip to DC.
Chef Payne shares Bronx beginnings with the students. He attended Taft High School in the Bronx and went on to get his bachelor’s degree in agronomy. Later, he traveled the world as a Navy cook and took cooking classes at various ports. He segued into the culinary arts, working at high-end restaurants like Park Avenue Café in New York before coming to National Geographic.
On their big day at National Geographic, the students enjoyed breakfast onsite and then helped Chef Payne with food preparation making Bok Choy Dumplings (see recipe) with Gotham Greens’ bok choy.
Chef Payne even explained how they address conservation of food in the kitchen by putting everything to use, with a tangible example.
“We prepared our crackers out of juice pulp—mixing the pulp with coconut oil, arrowroot flour, herbs and spices, baking soda and baking powder—scoring the dough and baking until crisp,” he said.
Payne thinks there is a big takeaway for the students, too. While traveling through life, “The key is to have the ability to be able to be introduced to something new, where you can always look forward to searching and striving to learn about the unknown.”
Since returning from DC, a group of the summer campers traveled to Boston for three days to present at the Boston GreenFest, taking place at historic venues such as Boston City Hall and Faneuil Hall; the students also fit in a visit to Harvard.
Accolades
Ritz has received many prestigious awards for his inspirational work, like being a top 10 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, a 2016 Health Champion Award, a 2016 Project Based Learning Champion Award, a 2014 Greenius Award, the ABC Above and Beyond Award, USS Intrepid Hometown Hero Award, NYC Chancellor’s Award, and many more. He has been recognized by world leaders including the Pope and received testimonials from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz. Ritz has also authored The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools (Rodale, 2017).
Most recently, an Emmy was bestowed on a PBS episode of “Growing a Green World,” featuring The Green Bronx Machine, where the host, Joe Lamp’l (aka Joe Gardner taught students how to stake tomato plants in the school garden) and former White House chef Bill Yosses taught a cooking class and practiced what he calls “stealth health”—inspiring students to try different foods through educational curiosity.
Ritz is always enthusiastic about positive outcomes, whether increased school attendance or academic success, and in a recent conversation enthused, “We have some great news! We posted a 91.5 percent school-wide passing rate on state tests this year—awesome!”
Perhaps the highest praise and testament to the benefits of the programming comes from a young student. On camera, she responds to the best parts of being a part of the Green Bronx Machine: “It helps to stay positive, believe in yourself and make the Earth a better place.”
