Green Teens pitch in at Harvey Park!

On April 5, the Green Teens were out early Saturday morning  helping  volunteers at Harvey Park. The ground was wet and the wind was howling but that did not stop the Green Teens. The Harvey Park annual  Pitch In For Parks Event was a big success thanks to the Green Teens. They raked and bagged leaves which were heavy,wet and soggy from the rain the night before. By the end of the event 270 bags of leaves were collected. They placed all 270 bags into a container to be taken out of the park.  It was a day full of hard work, laughs and snacks! The Green Teens and volunteers had a great time and Harvey Park looked fantastic. Adults and children alike were impressed in the Green Teens' dedication to community service. The Al Oerter Green Teens Rock!

Green Teen Design team visits Queens Greenhouse

On July 17th, the Al Oerter Green Teen Design team visited Queens Greenhouse in order to learn about plant care and design. Judy Mai, a green teen, shares her discoveries:
"Recently remodeled to incorporate technology, the greenhouse now uses computers to control the temperature in each room as well as heating pads to help seedlings germinate. In one room, wind would blow through the corrugated cardboard and become moist, and is later ventilated out on the other side. This creates a controlled environment that keeps air moving to prevent pests. The greenhouse goes by a golden rule policy where they try the least toxic method first to get rid of pests, avoiding the use of pesticides. Most of the plants being grown were annuals, which only have one year life cycles and are considered high maintenance.  However, these annuals consist of pretty flowers and are meant to be for show. Sally, a gardener there, showed us how they pot the seedlings. By collecting seeds, it becomes more cost effective. Perennials, on the other hand, are year round. When considering what to plant, one must look at the nature of the plants - bloom time, color, sun and shade tolerance, texture, use, etc."

Green Teens

Join us on May 18th, 2013, for the Marsh Island Restoration in Jamaica Bay!  NYC Audubon is enlisting volunteers to help the American Littoral Society plant Spartina grass (or "cord grass") in some of the habitat that was negatively affected by Hurricane Sandy.  This fast-growing grass will help prevent further erosion on marsh islands like Rulers Bar and Black Wall Marsh Island, and over time will bring back some much needed structure and buffering to the bay.

This is a great opportunity for volunteers to learn about saltmarsh ecology, as well wildlife and habitat management, right here in NYC. 

If you are interested in joining this effort, please email Nancy Cordova at Nancy.Cordova@parks.nyc.gov to register.
 

Additional Project Dates:

Sun May 19 @ 9:00AM - 01:00PM

Sat May 25 @ 11:00AM - 03:00PM

Sun May 26 @ 12:00PM - 04:00PM
Sun Jun 02 @ 10:30AM - 01:30PM

 

PSA Distribution & Tree Adoption! 

For the last couple of weeks we have been distributing PSAs (Public Service Announcements) to outdoor movie presenters to play prior to their movie screenings. These PSAs were created by Green Teens around the city of New York! Keep your eye out at these movies and see if you like these short clips! We would love your feedback! 

On another note Summer is a great time to help out your community and adopt a tree in your area! Through MillionTreesNYC, (http://www.milliontreesnyc.org) an initiative set up under Mayor Bloomberg to increase the tree population in NYC, you can adopt your own tree and take care of it! Trees need us as much as we need them! Visit the MillionTreesNYC website and adopt your tree today! 

On Monday July 16th, 2012 the Design Workshop commenced their summer session with a brief overview of the program and a couple of great site visits! 

The first site visit was to the NYC Pavilion in Flushing Meadow Corona Park(pictured above). This site was the former location of the 1939 & 1964 World's Fair. The members of the Design Workshop were given a brief tour of the structure by John Krawchuk, the Director of Historic Preservation for the Park Department (pictured above). The discussion on site included a history of the structure, the surrounding buildings as well as a history of the World's Fair. 

The City of New York is looking for innovated ideas on how to restore this site and bring this location back to it's former glory. To learn more check out http://www.newyorkstatepavilion.org/revivenewyorkstate.pdf. 

Several of the structures built for the World's Fair are still in use today however the Pavilion & the three Observation Towers are closed to the public. 

The second site visit took the Green Teens participating in the Design Workshop to PS 1, a satellite location of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The Design workshop took this tour to examine Wendy by Matthias Hollwich and Marc Kushnew (HWKN) winners of the Young Archutects Program (YAP) in New York. Wendy is an inexpensive, environmentally conscious piece that will be used throughout the summer to clean the air in PS1 (equivalent to taking 260 cars off the road in NYC) and will be used as a cool down and aesthetic addition to the Warm Up music series. To read more check out the website http://momaps1.org/yap/view/15. 

The Design Workshop on a trip to PS 1

What We Learned from 

Glen Nison,

NYC Department of Sanitation! 

1. We need to recycle more and waste less! 

2. We should recycle glass bottles and jars but not other glass material like mirrors and windows! 

3. If it is at least 50% metal it can and should be recycled! 

4. Most paper can be recycled. Paper that can not be recycled includes any soiled material, hard covered books and soft paper (for example napkins and tissues) 

5. If you need more information call 311 or go to www.nyc.gov/recycle 

 

Queens Green Teens would like to send out a special thanks to Street Tree Planning and MillionTrees NYC for their help in making our SYEP & GT Orientation such a great success! 

Learning how to care for trees was awesome! 

I can't wait to use all my new skills to care for the tree I adopted!