Birmingham City Schools, Jones Valley Teaching Farm, with NY Nonprofit Bring Hydroponics to Some Classrooms

By Sarah Verser | WBRC 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 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...