Cool School: Floating COVID-safe classroom

RETI Center's Rapid Resilience program spent the spring shipping masks all over the country, and the whole summer trying to help Red Hook stay cool.  Check out this video if you want to see what we did.

Now with school starting, and COVID still a threat, you can help RETI Center transform an industrial barge floating at GBX™~ on South Red Hook's coast into an off-grid learning lab for an unforgettable field trip for public school students of all ages. 

This is the first step in our plan to build BlueCity in Red Hook is the Cool School - a floating outdoor experiential learning center for studying the climate and staying safe from COVID.

Our host, GBX™~ ...on the edge of industry!™ is becoming the cyan innovation center where green‎ meets blue‎ for education & employment.

Help us turn an industrial barge (provided courtesy of our partner GBX™~)  into a carbon-free experiential learning laboratory with vertical gardens, solar power and heating, rainwater collection, and a breathtaking setting on New York Harbor.

On Brooklyn’s Gowanus Bay @ GBX™~, home of RETI Center's Cool School and the BlueCity development. 

Our local public schools are already asking to come down for COVID-safe field trips to learn about renewable energy, ecosystem restoration, environmental justice, and waste reduction, elimination, or use as a resource. Their students are facing the most disheartening challenge to their education: their opportunities have been limited, their movement has been restricted, and their optimism has been dampened by the pandemic. We must give them new opportunities to learn in new ways that expand their thinking, and show them how we can work together to cope with the grim news and daunting challenges this era presents. 

We must empower our kids with the knowledge and passion to shape a greener future.

The Cool School is being built with the help of youth leaders recruited from Red Hook's low-income community, giving them the hands-on knowledge and skills essential for transforming the way we solve problems.

RETI Center has dedicated itself to giving our young people tools to redesign the future for their own benefit. We've seen young voices from all over the world protest how we've given them a bleak future - and we must change their view to see the potential for change.

Starting in October, we'll be welcoming groups of 6-12 school children at the Cool School for hands-on, experiential learning through a wide range of renewable energy and climate-related science tools and experiments. Working with GBX™~ they'll learn the principles of circular economies, w²e™ (waste-to-energy), biophilic concrete, ecosystem restoration, and how environmental and social justice can change their prospects. 

Our vocational training program is being kicked off on September 25th in honor of Climate Week. Red Hook youth will be paid to learn the design and construction skills necessary to build out the Cool School barge and the many energy, food, and phytoremediation systems that will serve to instruct school groups. They will know how to assemble, maintain and operate them, and will assist our staff and visiting educators to teach our young guests.

An exciting part of our program is to connect our Brooklyn communities with the whole Hudson Valley region with Schooner Apollonia, our sail-based cargo partner. As Apollonia plies the Hudson trade route it operates as a mobile classroom, sharing RETI's education project at every port of call: from Albany to Kingston, Newburgh, Ossining, Harlem, and Red Hook. We're letting school kids sail with us (with social distance and proper COVID protocols) and see how we can keep our economy going while lightening the carbon burden.

We thank all our partners working closely with RETI on realizing COOL SCHOOL.

GBX™~ ...on the edge of industry!™ the cyan innovation center where green‎ meets blue‎ for education & employment