Superintendent Prayor describes Brooklyn South HEAT program and place-based learning

Thank you.

Okay.

So I'm going to just say welcome to Brooklyn South as I share what we're doing.

All right.

So I had the pleasure of sitting on the Blue Ribbon Commission, and there gave me a lot of insight to what we were doing correctly, some gaps.

And some things that I needed to improve on in Brooklyn South and take advantage of the opportunity having sat and heard from a lot of constituents, but mostly students.

Students were able to share exactly what they felt was missing and yet what they desired to have.

And hence, was the development of a program called HEAT.

And HEAT stands for Healthcare, Energy, Education, Agriculture, and Technology.

It's a place-based learning program.

It creates sustained learning experiences connected to rigorous academic work with professional, civic, and historical context.

And I do want to say for the record, I want to say they're not here, but council members, Joseph,

Narcisse for helping me find partners like Con Edison, Mamani's Hospital, and a few others.

I just want to put that on the record.

So what is HEAT?

And I'm going to give you some clear examples of what students are doing.

At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, right around the corner, students travel from Brooklyn to the Federal Reserve Bank.

At the bank, students study economics and investigate how markets, government, and individuals shape the flow of money and resources.

They examine a societal issue through an economic lens, work with professional economists, conduct research, produce a well-researched proposal, and defend it before economists and experts.

They are there for the whole year.

They travel in a cohort between 18 to 25 students.

Sorry, this is an individual school?

This is a collaboration of schools across Brooklyn South.

Okay, so 18 to 25 kids throughout Brooklyn South.

Thank you.

And that's just one.

At Cisco is another one.

At Cisco, students study cybersecurity and investigate industry-specific cybersecurity challenges.

Working with professionals, students analyze evolving challenges, develop solutions within incident response protocols for a particular audience, and present and defend those solutions before technology experts.

Students have to understand the content, analyze an authentic problem, design a solution, and defend their reasoning.

At Momani's Hospital, students explore areas including women's health,

surgery for women's health, general surgery, pathology and radiology.

They work with medical professions, investigate pressing issues, conduct research, develop a proposed solution, and defend their work before medical experts who probe their reasoning.

The evidence isn't that the students spent time in a hospital.