Christa Avampato

One of the causes I’m most passionate about is protecting our wild spaces from development. The news about the potential to sell off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this week was very upsetting to me. Thankfully these actions can be stopped through litigation and legislation. That’s why I wrote to my representatives via the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and also made a donation to their Action Fund that will file these lawsuits to stop the destruction of this beautiful wild space. NRDC will send these letters on your behalf to your representatives and it only takes 30 seconds to fill out the form online to make that happen: https://act.nrdc.org/letter/af-arctic-refuge-170925?source=TWOARCPETTKAF

We lose 1 billion birds per year due to collisions with glass windows of buildings. This Fall migration season I’m volunteering with New York City Audubon’s Project Safe Flight to help injured birds get the help they need at Wild Bird Fund.

If you’re in New York City and you’d like to join me, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/project-safe-flight-informational-session-tickets-115798770239.

This week I attended a training with @ColorOfChange to help get out the vote this Fall. I’m excited to be a part of the team. I love their mission to center Black empowerment & joy. I hope you’ll join me to be a part of this important work: https://www.mobilize.us/colorofchangepac/event/300304/

From now until the election, I’m going to listen to Michelle Obama’s speech at last night’s Democratic National Convention. Vote, volunteer, donate, stand up, and speak out. We have to win the presidency, the House, & the Senate in historic numbers. This November, vote like your life and the life of the planet depends on it because it does.

Kevin*, a New York City high school teacher, sits in front of his laptop in August doing the work of two teachers for one 9-month salary.

“You can’t just take your in-person lesson plan and hop on Zoom,” he said. “To do remote learning right, you have to completely reimagine the lesson plans. So that’s what I’m doing.”

Kevin has to build an in-person and remote teaching plan because he will have to do both in the 2020–2021 school year. I (virtually) sat down with him to find out what a day will look like in his school this year.

The before times
In a normal school day, Kevin and his colleagues saw five groups of students with 30–32 students each. Teachers got to their school early because they had to clean up the mouse droppings on their desks and in their classrooms. Then they checked the sticky traps the custodial staff gave them to dispose of any mice before the students arrived. Despite filing complaints of rodents to the principal, chancellor, and even 311, all they ever got were more sticky traps.

Kevin’s school was always short on supplies. They did not have enough desks and chairs for all the students so some had to sit in beanbags. (He made a point of thoroughly checking the beanbags for droppings and mice as part of his morning routine.) The bathrooms were routinely without toilet paper, soap, and paper towels. The ventilation was (and remains) inadequate or non-existent, especially for Kevin’s classroom because he had an interior space with no windows and a failing HVAC system.

Like many schools in New York, Kevin’s building houses multiple schools on different floors. This can cause intense rivalries and fights between the students so safety was always an issue.

COVID compounds existing school problems
On top of safety and cleanliness issues, supply shortages, and poor ventilation, Kevin and his colleagues have additional challenges now that will begin before the students even get to their school. To avoid crowding when students first arrive, the school will only perform random temperature checks. The school is asking families to check a student’s temperature before they go to school but it has no way of making sure that was done or verifying the results.

“There’s no question that we’ll have people with COVID showing up at school,” said Kevin. “A fever is only one symptom out of many possible ones, and some people never show any symptoms at all. Temperature checks might make some people feel better, but I think they’re a false security especially if they’re random.”

The vast majority of New York City students, teachers, and staff commute to work via public transportation. In the case of Kevin’s school, many of the students commute more than two hours one-way. In the process, they are exposed to many people in a contained space. While the New York City subways and buses have never been cleaner than they are today, they will be under an increased amount of pressure at the start of the school year with ridership numbers higher than they have ever been since the start of this pandemic. Can they maintain these protocols with higher ridership and a shortfall in funding? That remains to be seen.

How the hybrid model shapes the school day
The school day now is not going to be anything like the school day before COVID. With the hybrid model, students come to the physical school in groups to maintain social distance. For example, Group A goes to the physical school Tuesday, Thursday, and every other Monday. Group B goes on Wednesday, Friday, and every other Monday opposite of Group A. The other days, they are at home for remote learning.

Kevin’s school has decided to make every classroom a bubble to provide maximum safety for students and teachers. He will have 10–12 students in his classroom every day with desks and chairs spaced six feet apart in all directions. They will be in his classroom all day except for bathroom breaks. There will be no group work and everyone has to wear masks at all times except for lunch which they will eat in his classroom at their desks.

In high school, teachers teach one specific subject. When physically at school, Kevin will teach his 10–12 students his one subject in-person. For the rest of their classes, his students will be on their laptops with headphones taking classes from their other teachers just like they did in the spring when everyone was remote. When he is not teaching his one in-person class per day, Kevin will be at his desk on his laptop with his headphones on teaching his other students remotely.

The learning value of the hybrid model in Kevin’s school is a fallacy. The learning is still mostly remote; it is just done at the school rather than at home for half the week. But if a school makes the decision to have the students move to a new classroom for each subject like they did before COVID, the risk of the virus spreading increases dramatically. We have seen this scenario play out in school districts across the country that opened and then quickly closed again because of outbreaks.

Mental health during this pandemic has been a serious topic. One of the reasons many people are pushing for students to return to the classroom is for socialization. This is also a fallacy with the hybrid model. Without group work, extra-curricular activities, lunch in the cafeteria, gym, the library, and special events, students will still feel lonely and isolated even though they will be near other students and a teacher in a physical school on some days.

Students are already struggling mentally and emotionally. They are not engaged nor learning. They miss their friends and activities. In Kevin’s school, students may see some of their friends if they are in the same classroom but socializing from six feet away when everyone is on their laptops wearing masks will be nearly impossible. It may also be dangerous for students, teachers, and staff. A student could easily snap at any moment due to stress, depression, frustration, and any number of other emotions brought on by these circumstances.

Constant mask wearing is going to be a challenge to enforce. At Kevin’s school, the principal said students will be sent home if they don’t comply with wearing masks. However, this requires contacting the parent or guardian first to approve the dismissal.

“For most of our students that means sending them out onto the streets and missing a day of learning,” said Kevin. “It’s going to be a bad situation for everyone.”

Of course classroom behavior challenges is not limited to mask wearing. One of the most effective ways to manage any disruptive behavior is teacher proximity. If a student is acting up, a teacher’s go-to tool is to stand next to the student. It stops the behavior and keeps it from escalating. Now, teachers cannot use that tool because everyone needs to be six feet apart at all times.

“Honestly, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen,” said Kevin. “Behavior problems, fights, no one learning, everyone being frustrated. We could see a lot of teachers, staff, and students just quit or drop out. Not to mention that we [teachers] could get sick, watch our students and their family members get sick, or worse. I don’t know what I’ll do if someone dies because we reopened our school.”

A community in crisis
A school is much more than a place where students take classes and socialize. It is a community unto itself and it underpins the livelihood of the larger community and the city as a whole. Teachers and staff are now frontline workers. And yet, teachers feel as if no one is cheering for them the way we cheered on our healthcare and essential workers with the 7pm celebrations that used to happen across the city. If anything, there is vitriol from every corner thrown in their direction.

Call it fatigue. Call it frustration. It is indicative of a lack of leadership, responsibility, and collaboration between all stakeholders: government officials, administrative staff, teachers and their union, parents, students, and community members. There has never been a sense in New York City that reopening schools was a joint effort with all of these parties committed to and involved with reimagining and creating new student-centered solutions.

One possible solution
If this pandemic prevents schools from being able to open safely and stay open safely, what other options do we have? The big roadblocks in all of this are the physical condition of our school buildings and overcrowding. What if we completely relocate school? We transformed the Javits Center and a patch of Central Park lawn into hospitals. Hotels have become shelters and halfway houses for the homeless. Homes and apartments are now offices. Why not renovate spaces for schools?

Look at all of the empty space in our city created by a lack of tourism and an exponential increase in work-from-home arrangements. We have cultural institutions, hotels, office buildings, libraries, stores, and restaurants that are currently placeholders. Why not hold school in empty spaces that do have proper ventilation, high-quality cleaning protocols, and no rodent infestations? Why does school have to be conducted only in a school or at home? Why can’t we create the most important third place our city has ever needed?

The truth is we can. It takes creative vision and leadership to make that happen. It takes a team of leaders who can rally all of the stakeholders together to collaborate and imagine a new and better way forward in public education. And this is just one suggested solution. There could be a dozen others but we will not discover them unless we create them together.

There is still time to make it happen as long as we unite in our commitment to do what is best for our young people. We owe it to them to put aside our differences and our egos, and get to work on their behalf. Do we have the will to do that for them? Time will tell.

*The name of the teacher interviewed has been changed to protect their identity.

Phineas & I spent the day up in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. Just a short #1 subway line / metro-north combo train ride away from our neighborhood, we got to take in some of the history, lore, and outdoor art, and also enjoyed some beautiful views along the Hudson River.

After getting out of the train at Philipse Manor, we started at The Old Dutch Burying Ground of Sleepy Hollow where Washington Irving is buried. From there we walked along Broadway over the recreation of the Headless Horseman Bridge, past Philipsburg Manor, and through the town. Not much was open at the moment (due to COVID) but it was a good long walk which is what we needed! I’d love to go back in the Fall when it’s dressed up for Halloween and people are back from vacation. I also hope the historic sites will be open by then for tours (though I’d have to leave Phineas at home for those!)

Then we made our way to the Riverwalk in Tarrytown. This had gorgeous views of the Hudson, the newly dedicated Mario Cuomo Bridge, little places to eat on the water, and lots of gardens. Eventually, this will be part of a continuous 51-mile walking path along the river from Tarrytown north. In hindsight, I wish we had gotten out of the train there and done the Riverwalk first before working our way to the cemetery, mostly because that would have made the journey downhill instead of up! We’ll know for next time.

Nature shows us how to effectively support life, drive our economies, and improve our collective health for all kin on Earth.

I have stayed in New York City to bear witness to one of the most transformational times this city has ever seen — and to tell those stories. To keep my spirits up as I do that work, I lean on my biomimicry practice and nature’s examples of regeneration after trauma. In ki’s* 3.8 billions years, Earth has experienced ki’s fair share of destruction. Ki has lessons to teach us, and so I often find myself pulling up a proverbial chair to listen and learn (curious what ki and kin are all about? Keep reading).

Biomimicry, utilizing nature’s teachings in our own designs, provides us with a place to start and a compass to follow as we chart a course toward a better, brighter, and more sustainable future for all beings. As we now rebuild our cities in these uncertain times, biomimicry can help us clean the air, water, and soil the way that nature must do when ecosystems have been disrupted. Nature shows us how to effectively support life, drive our economies, and improve our collective health for all kin on Earth.

Nature has much to teach us about how to recover and thrive after traumatic events.

The field of biomimicry is truly beginning to take root in our society. Inspiration from nature’s systems and process is found throughout many academic and practical fields. The sustainable development principles of urban metabolism, the circular economy, and closed-loop manufacturing all have elements of biomimicry embedded in them. When aggregated together as nature does, they have the power to transform human-designed environments into living, breathing ecosystems like those we find in the natural world. Nature has much to teach us about how to recover and thrive after traumatic events.

Urban metabolism

As a discipline, urban metabolism documents and analyzes the flow of materials and energy in urban environments. One of its main goals is to study how nature’s systems and human-made systems interact and influence one another. In 2008, industrial ecologist Christopher Kennedy and his research team published a paper titled The Changing Metabolism of Cities. In it, they detail a framework that attempts to capture and account for, “the sum total of the technical and socio-economic process that occur in cities, resulting in growth, production of energy, and elimination of waste.” It’s this accounting that makes urban metabolism, and its relationship to biomimicry, an increasingly important tool in our effort to measure the impacts of climate change and use those measures to make decisions about sustainable urban development, particularly in a world so altered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Metabolism of Cities is a community-run platform that offers tools, news, research, and data about the work being done in the urban metabolism community across the globe.

Circular economy and closed-loop manufacturing

Biomimicry teaches us that nothing goes to waste. Waste products from one part of an ecosystem are reused, recycled, and even upcycled by other organisms to create new life. We can readily see this when fungi emerge to break down a fallen tree or when we use our food scraps for fertilizer in our gardens. This is not how most of our economy and manufacturing processes work today. According to The Circular Gap Report, presented at the 2019 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, less than 9% of today’s global economy is circular. By contrast, nature’s economy is 100% circular. If we made it our mission to embrace biomimicry and operate our economy as nature does, our planet and all kin who call ki home would be exceedingly healthier and more sustainable. This trifecta of pandemics is giving us a chance to reset, to collectively pause and ask, “How do we best move forward now?” The future isn’t linear — cradle to grave; it’s circular — cradle to cradle. That idea has never been more clear or urgent than it is now.

We have this monumental moment to choose life, to choose health, and to choose a better tomorrow. Nature wouldn’t waste it, and neither should we.

COVID-19, the fight for social justice, and our decimated economy have given us a window of opportunity to accelerate our work toward a sustainable future. It is a window for which we paid a very steep and agonizing price. To honor those we lost in our recent, brutal battles, and to make meaning of all the pain it’s brought to so many people, we have to come together and work toward building a world that’s better than it’s ever been before. We have this monumental moment to choose life, to choose health, and to choose a better tomorrow. Nature wouldn’t waste it, and neither should we.

*In the English language, we often use the pronouns she, he, them, and their derivatives to refer to people or personhood. But what about the other living beings with whom we share this planet? Why do we refer to them as “it”, a pronoun that lacks life?

In an effort to show respect and honor for all life, celebrated botanist and author Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer turned to her ancestral Potawatomi language. The Potawatomi are a Native American people of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family.

Potawatomi has a word Aakibmaadiziiwin meaning ‘a being of the earth’. Dr. Kimmerer has suggested that the word’s syllable “ki” could serve as a singular pronoun to represent all life, and “kin” would be the plural. This idea resonates deeply with the principles of biomimicry as we look to all beings with whom we share this planet as our elders, teachers, and mentors.

In her beautiful piece about this grammar construct in Orion Magazine, Dr. Kimmerer acknowledges that changing language is a difficult process, but one that is well worth the effort. It is our intention to be a part of that process, to lift up all life as having value and worth, and so we have adopted “ki” and “kin” in this piece as our preferred pronouns.

Read more about Dr. Kimmerer’s thoughts on the language of nature here.

I originally published this piece on the Biomimicry Institute Blog.

In April, at the height of the pandemic in New York City, Central Park asked me to write an essay about what the park means to me as part of their #MyCentralPark Instagram campaign. This week, they selected a quote from my essay and printed it on a banner that now hangs in Central Park on the path that runs along the north side of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 84th Street just off Fifth Avenue. My heart is overflowing with gratitude to have my words displayed in my favorite place in the world. Here’s the full essay that includes this quote:

I live half a block from Central Park. I go there every day with my tiny dog. I go when I’m depleted and emerge restored. I go when I’m happy and emerge with even more joy.

The park holds our smiles and tears, our hopes and fears. It breathes with us and for us. Over these past weeks it’s my breath that I’m most grateful for. It’s my breath and the park that I return to as I look for some bits of peace in this quiet war.

The park is my classroom and my confidant. Now it’s also my theater and my concert hall. My laboratory and my living, thriving museum. It’s where science and art and society intertwine so fully that it’s impossible to separate them.

The park makes room. It makes room for everyone, for all forms of life — people, plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. All playing their part, all contributing to something greater than themselves.

There is work happening in the park, the most profound work that can be done. Life turns over there. It’s constantly and steadily renewed, and so are we in its presence. It’s a reminder of the cycle of nature mirrored in the cycle of our own lives. None of it lasts forever, but all of it serves its purpose in its time.

The park is always there, in every season, at every time of day. Steady and at ease — two things we need so desperately now in these unsteady times of tremendous difficulty.

When I think back on this time, I’ll always remember that when everything else fell away, Central Park remained. It waited for us, ready to welcome us as its beloved guests to tread lightly on its hallowed ground, whenever we arrived, providing whatever we needed in a time when we needed so much. That is something I’ll never forget, something I’ll never take for granted — the generosity of that park and everyone who works so hard to keep it open for all of us.

 

In the product development process using design thinking and human-centered design methodologies, the very first stage is empathize. To create empathy for the people we’re creating for, a product developer like me talks with and listens to all stakeholders, and particularly to experts in the field for which we’re designing.

Teachers need to be part of the school reopening design process
I was shocked to learn from friends of mine who are teachers that this is not what’s happening in New York City schools, the country’s largest school system. None of them have been asked to participate in the design process to reimagine our schools in the era of COVID-19. The decision to reopen schools and the potential design of that reopening is being done by administrators, government officials, and, in some instances, parents. Teachers are not in the conversation (and neither are students), and yet they will be tasked with putting these plans into action. This not only lacks empathy; it’s also dangerous, inconsiderate, and setting the stage for damaging conflict.

Teachers are education experts
Subjects Matter Experts (known in product development by the acronym SME) are worth their weight in gold. They have insights that no one else in the process has. They are the center of making our strategy and plan a reality. Without their buy-in and advocacy, a product dies. Teachers (and students) need to be an integral part of the education redesign process, not just in New York City, but in every school district in the country.

How New York teachers are personally preparing for schools reopening
Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this process to witness is that my teacher friends are preparing wills, power of attorney, and life insurance policies, and getting their documents like the location of passwords in order. They know that the chance of them getting sick is high if physical schools reopen. They have family members and friends to consider in this process, just like all other people. They are preparing for battle with an invisible enemy, all while trying as best they can to love, care for, and teach their students. This sad and desperate situation is their reality while they wait for the government’s decision.

Unity is still possible
Imagine where we would be now if New York City schools had spent all this time since March 2020 getting broadband to kids who don’t have it and figuring out how best to serve differently-abled kids. Instead, we have convoluted plans that are nearly impossible to decipher with little to no buy-in that are unlikely to work and even less likely to protect teachers, staff, students, and families from getting sick. After all we’ve been through in New York, don’t we deserve a chance to be unified in our efforts to protect one another as the school year begins? It’s not too late. Unity and collaboration with all stakeholders, teachers and students very much included, is still possible.

An open plea for collaboration with teachers
Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, Chancellor Carranza, and members of the New York City Council, I hope you will take ownership of this process and that in that ownership you will embrace the expertise of teachers to create a school system that is safe and productive for all. Here is my commitment as a concerned community member: I would happily facilitate the product development process to redesign schools in the wake of COVID-19 and I would do it for free. How to open our schools (in whatever capacity we do that) for the 2020 school year is one of the most important decisions this city will make. Let’s pull together as New Yorkers always do in times of difficulty. Let’s listen to one another. Let’s support one another. Let’s be unified in our efforts to keep everyone safe, healthy, and inspired. It’s possible, and necessary, for the sake of all our residents. I’m here if you need me.