Hello Everyone!
Past Projects
Ambassador Carts
Podcast
Gowanus Boat House
Ambassador Carts
What are Ambassador Carts? They are mobile display carts made by young New Yorkers out of reclaimed materials. The carts were distributed around Brooklyn as a showcase of the kid’s creations and experiments with biochar and the use in remediating soil and water in our Backyard Utopias.
Podcast
The KoKo Podcast is an interactive podcast designed to activate the imagination through storytelling and building challenges. Listeners become makers using recycled materials and objects found around the home to design cool inventions and kinetic sculptures!
In each episode, our teaching artists tell a story to set the scene for creative thinking. Then, listeners participate in a designated building time where they can explore their ideas inspired by the story they’ve just heard. Kids are invited to log onto the KoKo NYC website where they can post pictures of their creations, write stories in response to the podcast and interact with other kids!
The KoKo Podcast was born out of a discussion with teaching artists about how to maintain a sense of community and keep kids making hands-on projects while also minimizing screen time during the pandemic. This podcast provides a place where ideas can run free and natural collaboration can take place; a space for kids to escape the seriousness and anxiety-inducing state of our world as we navigate challenging times.
Gowanus Boat House
In our free, teen-led workshop, youth build sustainable houseboats and floating planter boxes for the Gowanus Canal. KoKo NYC teaches the teens, ages 14-18, hands-on lessons about sustainability and Gowanus history, helping them to build critical thinking and problem solving skills.
The goal of this workshop is to build a self-sufficient, floating Observatory/Houseboat constructed entirely out of found and recycled materials. The Houseboat is completely off the grid, surrounded by floating planter boxes growing ornamental/edible plants and supplemental solar energy battery boxes, harvesting power for the boat. The teens have to get creative, building water collection tanks, installing donated solar panels to recharge portable onboard batteries, and more. The teens routinely perform water sampling/testing of the Gowanus waters to eventually work towards cleaning up the canal.
Once our prototype was developed and functional, we continued to expand it, making more planters and energy storage boxes. Through this project, we hope to further the virtues of sustainable living and zero waste.
KoKo NYC is working with a network of organizations to help educate others about CSO (Combined Sewage Overflow). This project is being developed with The Gowanus Canal Conservancy and the Gowanus Dredgers as well as other Gowanus based organizations. We are hoping to provide GCC with a platform for water sampling, sustainable growth, and energy harvesting on the Gowanus.
2 Planter Boxes are currently floating in the Gowanus Canal.
In collaboration with Dilly Dally Projects and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy we added BioChar to test if we can getter results on cleaner Water and Soil.