PROSPECT PARK ALLIANCE (Brooklyn, NY) - Brooklyn Academy for Science and the Environment

Friday, July 1, 2005

(Parks Practices)

Prospect Park Audubon Center

PROSPECT PARK ALLIANCE
Brooklyn, NY

In This Profile: Program Description • Program Goals • Timeframe • Budget • Funding/Support • Results Achieved • Lessons Learned • Ask The Expert • Contact Information

Introduction

Prospect Park is a 526-acre urban oasis located in the heart of Brooklyn, New York City's most populous borough. The masterpiece of famed landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also designed Central Park, Prospect Park features the 90-acre Long Meadow, the 60-acre Lake and Brooklyn's only forest. The nation's first urban Audubon Center, the Prospect Park Zoo, and the Celebrate Brooklyn! Performing Arts Festival are just a few of the cultural attractions that make their home here at the park. The Prospect Park Alliance is a public/private partnership with the City of New York, which, through fundraising and advocacy, furthers the restoration and preservation of Prospect Park and the development of the park as a resource for the people of New York City. The Alliance is a member of the City Parks Alliance and National Association for Olmsted Parks. Its president, Tupper Thomas, serves on the City Parks Alliance board.

Program title: Brooklyn Academy for Science and the Environment

Program description:

The Prospect Park Alliance (PPA) partners with Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) and the New York City Department of Education to operate the Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment (BASE). Part of the city-wide initiative to convert large, under-performing high schools into small, theme-based ones, BASE is a three-campus school that integrates the missions and resources of its partners to offer academic excellence and rigor. The BASE community of staff, families and community partners supports students in becoming critical thinkers, active learners and problem solvers who are scientifically literate, engaged citizens who value and respect the environment.

	Prospect Park Audubon Center

In order to create a strong, sustainable collaboration, the partners have expanded their educational staff, hired a community director, and committed additional resources. The community director works closely with staff from PPA and BBG. Both partners provide staff assistance from education, marketing, government relations, development, finance, youth programs and landscape management departments. Much of the interaction between staff and students takes place during Field Studies. Field Studies are weekly, credit-bearing courses, which teach scientific inquiry and bring students into the park and garden to engage them in hands-on explorations of the environment. They are a proven way of reaching young people who might not ordinarily respond to traditional teaching methods.

Located in the Prospect Heights High School building, BASE primarily draws students from the surrounding communities of Crown Heights and Flatbush, where there is a high concentration of low-income families. (80% of the student body qualifies for the federal free or reduced lunch program.) Total enrollment is currently 225, which includes freshmen and sophomores; the third freshman class will be added in the fall, bringing enrollment to approximately 325. The average class size is 27 students. 90% of the school's population is African- or Caribbean-American, and 25% is recent immigrants.

Additional initiatives offered to BASE students include:

• Learning Expeditions, which invite student groups to visit and explore parks, nature centers and pristine environments to expand their classroom studies.
• An After School Learning Support Center, where teachers in all subject areas are available for homework help, test preparation and review of material.
• The Family Circle, where the BASE community offers a Parenting Journey curriculum for parents to explore their personal experience with parenting.
• The BASE Advisory Program provides a safe, comfortable environment in which young people can explore their identity, community and decision-making practices.
• BASE Ambassadors, a Leadership Development Program that gives teens intensive training in team building, trust, communication and effective leadership. Ambassadors are an integral part of the BASE support system that is available to incoming freshmen.
• The newly developed BASE Internship and Science Research Programs, which will give Junior Year students an opportunity to extend their learning into other environmental and science-based organizations.
• Medgar Evers College courses for college credit for those students who seek to challenge themselves academically.

Program goals/issues addressed:

• Use physical and educational resources of Prospect Park Alliance and Brooklyn Botanic Garden to strengthen BASE's curriculum, integrating educational approaches between public high school and its two non-formal education institutions.
• Develop students who are critical thinkers through using field studies to teach scientific method of inquiry.
• Develop critical thinkers who value and respect the environment; 10th grade students participate in community environmental research.
• Work with students who enter with a variety of performance levels and abilities, and graduate students who are high performing and college ready.
• Develop a strong school culture among students, staff, administration, partners and parents that supports students' academic and lifetime success.

Timeframe (planning/execution):

	Prospect Park Audubon Center

The Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment opened its doors to the first freshmen class in September 2003, and will add a grade of students each year until an enrollment of approximately 450 students is reached.

Annual program budget:

FY06: $2,660,000 (approximate). This changes annually as BASE grows to full capacity. For FY2006, with 9th-11th graders, the school is supported by approximately $2,020,000 from NYC Department of Education, $140,000 in New Century Initiative funding, and $250,000 each from Prospect Park and Brooklyn Botanic Garden in cash and in-kind support, mostly in staffing. There is additional in-kind support provided by other collaborating partners.

Funding sources/partnerships and type of support provided:

BASE is a collaboration that has been made possible through a major grant from the New Century High Schools Initiative, a joint initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Open Society Institute to create smaller, more effective high schools. The project is managed by New Visions for Public Schools in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education, the United Federation of Teachers and the Council of Supervisors and Administrators. Educators, parents, students, community-based organizations and collaborating partners — the Brooklyn Museum, Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn College, New York League of Conservation Voters and Safe Horizon — work together to redefine and develop the unique concepts and curriculum goals of the school.

Results achieved/impact

	Prospect Park Audubon Center Live Owl Program

• NYS Regents scores for Living Environment in 2004 were: 91% met graduation requirement of 55 or better and 75% met requirement for Regents Diploma. Both pass rates were 10% higher than last year's citywide scores and more than double that of Prospect Heights High School, which is being phased out. Students did particularly well on the section of the exam having to do with designing research, which is directly attributed to their experience with Field Studies.



• 2005 Math Regents scores were: 72.7% passed with a 55 or better and 56.6% received a 65 or higher. By comparison after four years of high school the citywide passing rate is 67% and at Prospect Heights High School the passing rate is 34%. Embedded in the BASE statistic are twenty-one 9th graders who took the exam a year earlier than normal. 100% of this group passed with scores ranging from 73-95%.



• This year BASE has seen significant increases in the number of students achieving Honor Roll status. In the first semester of the 2003-04 school year, less than 1% of students received High Honors by achieving a 90-100% in every subject, and 4% of students received Merit with 80-89% in every subject. Now, based on the first semester of 2004-05, 6% of students received High Honors and 18% of students were awarded Merit.



• BASE students are performing at such an exceptional academic level that 11 sophomores are participating in College Now. This program, usually reserved for juniors and seniors, enrolls students in courses at Medgar Evers College in chemistry, biology and math. Students are enrolled free of charge and receive college credits for each course. More than fifty students have applied for College Now classes to start in September '05.



• Attendance rates are above the citywide and school-wide average at 90.2%. Prospect Heights High Schools has an average attendance rate of 77%.

Lessons learned:

BASE's principal, partners, and staff are committed to working with students of varying skill levels, supporting all students to graduate college ready, high performing and living up to potential. Environmental awareness and citizen engagement are given priority. The school is very much a work in process, not even being at full capacity until fall 2006, so that lessons are being learned continually.

• Field study began with an emphasis on ecology and other parts of the Living Environment curriculum. Students showed a need for support in design and research; they did not know the scientific method. Field Study is now designed to stress scientific thinking and research skills, with classes in observation, question formulation, hypothesizing, identifying methods and materials, and so on. This year's class is better skilled.



• Much staff time is devoted to planning and reflection:
  • Co-teaching is an aim not yet realized for Field Study and it needs to be a focus of professional development for staff at all three institutions.
  • Integrating the curriculum can happen only after teachers have grown comfortable with their classes; we are working to develop common language across subjects.
  • High/common expectations for students are of premiere importance.


• Establishing a school culture takes time, hard work, vigilance and commitment from staff, students, partners and parents. The culture is the learning environment. The more positive the culture, the more learning will occur.



• The school and its partners cannot separate youth development and culture building activities from academic curriculum. To build a strong curriculum, we need to be integrated into many aspects of the school as well as look carefully at in which programs the partners should be active and which programs need to be sustained by DOE staff (internships are a good example).



• A seat on the School Leadership Team is important for the role of the partners.

Ask the Expert:

Name: Pam Fishman
E-mail: pfishman@prospectpark.org
Date submitted: 7/1/05

Contact Information

Organization: Prospect Park Alliance
Address: 95 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Tel: 718-965-8951
Fax: 718-965-6950
E-mail: info@prospectpark.org
Web site address: www.prospectpark.org

Photos courtesy of Prospect Park Archives     Print Friendly

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