Stephen Ritz
Stephen Ritz is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning educator, author of best-selling book,
The Power Of A Plant and Founder of
Green Bronx Machine. Known as America’s favorite teacher and
2015 Top Ten Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, Stephen is responsible for creating the first edible classroom in the world. He and his students have grown more than 165,000 pounds of vegetables in the South Bronx, were celebrated at the Obama White House three times, have been featured on the cover of TIME for KIDS, and are the subject of a new, full-feature documentary,
Generation Growth. A replica of his classroom was installed in the US Botanic Gardens in Washington, DC and his curriculum is being used in hundreds of schools across the United States, and internationally from Colombia to Dubai, from Canada to Cairo, to Doha, and beyond.
One of Stephen’s areas of expertise is creating proactive, joyous, and inclusive school learning environments – spaces and places that are warm, inviting, encouraging, accessible, and conducive to learning and community. To that end, he was recently asked by the NYS Education Department to keynote to the 4,300+ principals regarding the new “portrait of a graduate standards” and how to achieve them, specifically because of my work on learning environments. Two videos that speak to this really well are:
Some articles that speak really well to the work include: