Hedgework @ PS 20 is a landscape installation at the school’s learning gardens that integrates environmental sensing with a community of plants. It is a natural storyteller that draws on real-time data streams to playfully communicate about the state of its microbiome. Hedgework provides an innovative platform for developing learning activities within the context of the PS20 Green Arts program and its International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. We will ask questions about our environment that reflect our community’s curiosity and concerns, and Hedgework will make the invisible visible – fostering a sense of environmental stewardship and helping students and the community understand nature’s nuances more deeply in order to advocate on its behalf.
Hedgework collects data from its environmental sensors and networked cameras to tell the story of the environment in real-time, presenting it via an online data dashboard, an AI chat interface, and a streaming audio app that “sonifies” the environmental data. The data will be integrated into PS 20 curricula to address issues of sustainability, biodiversity, and climate change. The environmental data, together with new ways to house and observe plants and the presence of insects, 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, not just exist alongside, nature.
PS 20 Green Arts is an interdisciplinary, hands-on educational approach that broadens students’ modes of learning, manipulation of materials, and production processes. It is a collaboration between classroom teachers and the PS20 Arts and PS20 Farms Programs that started in 2013. Teachers work closely with the program’s instructors to ensure that what the children do outside in the garden and inside the art studio informs and complements the work that is done in the classroom – so while the kids are digging in the dirt and expressing themselves in the art studio, they are also building on what they have learned in their IB Units of Inquiry.
Mast 1 – Bird and Pollinator Bed Cameras:
Mast installed with two cameras to monitor bee activity, the growth of native pollinator attractors, and to observe and identify bird species at a bird feeder.
Mast 2 – Environmental Sensing Platform:
Mast installed with sensors to measure air temperature, air humidity, soil surface temperature, soil volumetric water content, soil EC, leaf temperature, leaf wetness, rainfall hourly, PAR sensor, light intensity, CO2, barometric pressure, wind direction, wind speed, air quality – PM2.5, PM10.
Mast 3 – Birdhouses:
Mast installed with three birdhouses.
Chat with the Hedge!
You can say things like:
- What plants attract butterflies?
- What is the current local weather? Air quality? Soil and plant conditions?
- What’s going on inside your planters?
(We do not collect personal information. Read our Privacy Policy).
Hedgework @ PS 20 is a collaboration between Wes Heiss (Civic Space LLC), Mark Shepard (Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies (CAST)), Antonina Simeti (Timbre Consultants), and Marek Walczak (Civic Space LLC) with contributions from Timothy Noble (software/hardware development) and Johanna Kindvall (graphic design). Thanks to the PS 20 PTA, Amanda Bonavita (chair of the PS 20 Green Arts Committee), and Mr. Jonathan Blumberg (gardening instructor).
The project has been made possible by a grant from the NYC Public Schools (NYCPS) Office of Energy & Sustainability. Special thanks to Voltaic Systems for their generous support with the solar power system. Hedgework was originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation and installed in 2024 as part of its public arts program.
Contact us at info [at] hedgework [dot] net
