b' gardeningYou can learn a lot from vegetablesThey even have a farm at Yankee Stadium. And they donate the food to their school community and to several hundred local residents. In the summer, to help grow all the food, the organization employs six teenagers and young adults.Mr. Ritz says his ultimate goal is simple: To inspire healthy living, to inspire healthy learning, to get children to eat better, to learn how their food is produced, where their food comes from, how we can grow food, how we can minimize our imprint and impact on the environment and be kinder to ourselves and the planet. We believe from our humble corner of the globe, we just might change the world.By Waliyyah Smith and AMY Northwest Like most gardeners, they grow Healthy Bulldog staffvegetables by planting seeds in soilAEROPONICS involves the growing outdoors. But they also grow cropsof plants by suspending their roots We heard him before we saw him.Evenindoors using a special growing systemin the air and spraying them with though we were half asleep at 8:30 on acalled a Tower Garden. Tower Gardens nutrient solutions.recent Monday morning, Stephen Ritzare aeroponic garden systems, whichMerriam-Websterwas WIDE awake. He appeared on ameans the plants are fed by a nutrient Zoom call wearing a mist rather than through soil, accordingAQUAPONICS is a food production cheese hat and talking really fast. to Juice Plus+, the company that makessystem in which fish are raised in When asked what he does, his list wasTower Gardens. Mr. Ritz says the Towertanks of water where plants are also lengthy. He ultimately settled on thisGardens are great food-producinggrown, so that the waste from the fish description: I am a human exclamationdevices and really cool technology. provides food for the plants and the point. Mr. Ritzs energy was evident andAnd they are perfect to use in schoolsplants keep the water clean. unmatched by anyone we know. because you can use them year-roundCollins Online English Dictionaryand they dont need a lot of water or He heads the National Health, Wellness,space, he says.and Learning Center at CommunityHYDROPONICS is a method of School 55 in New York City. He is alsoI think that when children grow healthygrowing plants without the use of the founder and spiritual backbonefood they eat healthy food, Mr. Ritzsoil, by using water through which says. When they get to see it andnutrients are pumped.of the Green Bronx Machine, which heexperience it and taste it and touch itCollins Online English Dictionarystarted as a teacher at the elementaryand sell it and cook with it, they tend to school in 2004. They turned anuse it more.abandoned lot near the school into a garden.Mr. Ritz and the Green Bronx Machine are part of whats called the locally The Green Bronx Machine now hasgrown movement. The movement programs in 675 schools across theis the push to eat food that is grown United States as well as in seven otherand harvested nearby to where it is countries, including Egypt, Dubai, andpurchased, according to a 2022 article Qatar. The programs curriculum centerson EcoWatch, an environmental news on gardening. website. The food is grown with fewer We grow vegetables, Mr. Ritz says.chemicals, requires less transportation, Our vegetables grow students.and helps support local farmers.Our students grow schools, and ourThe Green Bronx Machine produces schools grow happy, healthy, resilientmore than 10,000 pounds of fruits and community children who are thrivingvegetables per year for local residents. in school and eating their fruits andThey grow the food on two acres of land vegetables. and multiple large aeroponic systems. 18B Y K I D S , F O R K I D S | S p r i n g 2 0 2 3'