HedgeS at PS20 is a collaboration with teachers, administrators, and parents where students engage in hands-on learning through planting, studying plant and bee life cycles, and composting. The project will enhance the existing school gardens and Green Arts Program making the invisible visible through sculpture, digital media, and hyper-local environmental data – helping students and the community understand nature’s nuances more deeply and advocate on its behalf.

The HedgeS team is installing an environmental sensing platform in the school’s learning gardens. The system will collect data through sensors and cameras to tell the story of the environment in real time through a variety of interfaces, presenting it via an AI chat engine, a streaming audio app that “sonifies” the data, and an online dashboard. The team will work with the school’s International Baccalaureate Coordinator to integrate the system into arts, music, science, and digital literacy classes, addressing sustainability, biodiversity, and climate change. The environmental data, together with new ways to house and observe plant and insect presence and health will help support a pollinator habitat, ensuring that plants and flowers in the garden thrive, help other local gardens and parks flourish, and continue to give the community access to natural, unrefined honey. Students, teachers, parents and the broader community will have new ways to collaborate with and not just exist alongside nature.