Greenpoint SYSTEM Summer Program:

The Greenpoint YMCA and the NYU Wallerstein Collaborative for Urban Environmental Education have developed an environmental program for New York City high school students focusing on the integration of STEM standards. Funding for the program is provided by ExxonMobil and Broadway Stages.

The program now called “SYSTEM” was initiated in 2010 to foster environmental literacy and stewardship by using the local environment as a context for learning. Place-based education is used as a theoretical framework for learning which connects people to the places where they live, work and learn.  Students make connections between natural and human-made systems in order to understand the complexities of urban settings. Utilizing the Greenpoint community as a starting point,  the program takes an interdisciplinary approach in integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with language arts, social studies and the arts.  The program draws on the resources within the local community, thus students learn about the past as well as the present in order to create a sustainable vision of the future.