2021 followed a year no one could have expected. Yet even as we continued to respond and adapt to the new reality of the ongoing pandemic, Thriving Earth Exchange found innovative ways to advance community science and spark new collaborations in the United States and around the world. This year, we launched a record number of projects and forged exciting new partnerships. We continued to grow our fellowship model, engaging more than 50 emerging community science leaders in impactful projects. We expanded how we define and source expertise, to include technical experts like engineers, planners and social scientists who make vital contributions to community science projects. And most importantly, community science is now recognized as a critical pathway to making science more equitable, inclusive and just (as evidenced by its role as a primary pillar of the #AGU21 theme, “Science is Society”). Below, we celebrate the people and projects that made 2021 a watershed year for Thriving Earth and community science.
Our Projects
In 2021, we launched a record number of projects in communities across the US and beyond. Check them out below and stay tuned as they progress!
Projects Launched in 2021
January/February
- Sandy Springs, Georgia – Implementation of green infrastructure to improve water quality and reduce flood risk within the Colewood Creek watershed
- Greenwich, Connecticut – Assessing sea level rise and flooding events to promote community engagement and action
- Otsego County, New York – Creating a detailed county-wide GHG inventory and identifying potential opportunities for GHG reductions
- New Orleans, Louisiana – Connecting community-collected data with nationwide datasets to scale up flood mitigation efforts in coastal urban areas across the U.S. (with ISeeChange)
- Santa Rosa County, Florida – Mapping natural and developed resources to positively impact responsible growth
- New Orleans, Louisiana – Assessing the ecosystem services of trees in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans: quantifying air quality and temperature (with Upper Bunny Friend)
- Berwyn Heights, Maryland – Inventorying invasive plant species to protect tree canopies
- Louisville, Kentucky – Developing a flood susceptibility index to amend the 2021 KIPDA Hazard Mitigation Plan (with Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency)
- Durham, North Carolina – Identifying gaps in urban flooding reporting in Durham
- National City, California – Activating neighborhood community leaders to increase community participation in composting efforts through a culturally relevant lens
- Richmond, Virginia – Investigating our air (with Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond)
- Vilas County, Wisconsin – Engaging community members in terrestrial invasive species management through data collection and mapping
- Austin, Texas – Developing and implementing protocols for determining the effectiveness of urban land stewardship (with Ecology Action Texas)
April
- Columbus, Ohio – Assessing water quality near fracking injection well sites in the Columbus Metro watersheds to protect drinking water
- Anchorage, Alaska – Updating greenhouse gas emission inventory and framework
- Chester, Pennsylvania – Assessing the cumulative effects of particulate emissions on community health
- Virginia Beach, Virginia and Ocean City, New Jersey – Understanding offshore wind energy development
- Montevallo, Alabama – Assessing the quality-of-life Impacts of municipal assets, resources, and services in Montevallo, Alabama
- Pensacola, Florida – Assessing the impact of new construction on local wetlands on flooding
- Historic Ellicott City, Maryland – Measuring the impact of flood management strategies on flooding and water quality in a historic residential neighborhood
- Island Green, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – Assessing the impacts of a housing development on community flooding
- Marion County and Rosewood, South Carolina – Mapping & attribution of flood exposure and its health consequences in the Pee Dee River Basin
- Georgetown Seattle, Washington – Communicating flood risks & surveying sites for new open spaces and accessible river access
- Columbia, South Carolina – Assessing the cumulative groundwater and health impact of facilities in the Lower Richland area of South Carolina
- Costa Mesa, California – Raising awareness of climate change’s impact on human health
July
- Hardin County, Texas – Understanding the social dimensions of nature-based flood resilience
- Teecnospos, Arizona – Assessing the safety of drinking water in three Navajo Nation communities
- Greenville, South Carolina – Assessing environmental impact of proposed bus maintenance facility and community capacity building at New Washington Heights
- Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana – Analyzing species survival for Mississippi River divergence project
With additional projects in development in:
- Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico
- Washington, DC
- Portland, Oregon
- Rapid City, South Dakota (with Black Hills Clean Water Alliance)
- Seattle, Washington
- Happy Camp, California
- James Island, South Carolina
- Tyonek, Alaska (Native Community of Tyonek)
- North Andros, Bahamas
October
- Washington, DC – Assessing direct community impact from proposed 250-bus depot
- San Jose, California – Assessing neighborhood-scale impacts of the urban forest on air quality and human health (with Our City Forest)
With additional projects in development in:
- Anecdata.org (based at MDI Biological Laboratory in Salisbury, Maine)
- South Park, Washington
- Duck Hill, Mississippi
- New Orleans, Louisiana (with A Community Voice)
- Ponce, Puerto Rico
- North Charleston, South Carolina
- Brevard County, Florida
- Columbia, South Carolina (with South East Rural Community Outreach)
- Boulder City, Nevada
- Mount Desert, Maine
- Montgomery County, Maryland – Prioritizing adaptation recommendations for equitable flooding resilience in Montgomery County’s climate action and resilience plan
Projects completed in 2021
- Park City, Utah – Evaluating the effectiveness of biochar for carbon sequestration, soil productivity, water retention, and wildfire risk reduction
- Clark County, Washington – Assessing the impacts of volcanic rock mining on rural communities
- Melbourne, Florida – Evaluating urban stormwater drainage to create flood-resilient neighborhoods and gardens
- Frederick, Maryland – Updating precipitation forecasts for flooding events
- Charleston, South Carolina – Assessing the potential impact of new urban development on flooding
- San Diego, California – Leveraging community science to increase watershed education and restoration
Our Partners
Thriving Earth Exchange continues to strengthen our existing partnerships and forge new ones. We were proud to partner with the following organizations in 2021:
Associations of expertise
Community-serving
- ecoAmerica
- Government Finance Officers Association
- Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
- National League of Cities
- Sustainable Maryland
- Anthropocene Alliance
- California Strategic Growth Council
Science, government and academics
- National Park Service
- USAID Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) program
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (with USAID PEER)
- National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
- Association of Science and Technology Centers
- American Meteorological Society
International
- South Trelawny Environmental Agency (Jamaica)
- Hano Wene (Indonesia)
- International City and County Management Association (ICMA)
- EPIC-Network
- Future Earth Australia
- Association of Young Geologists and Environmentalists of Senegal
We are also excited to lay the groundwork for collaboration with the following groups in 2022:
Our People
Thriving Earth Exchange is driven by volunteers. Without the community leads who seek to use science to make their communities a better place to live, work and play; the scientists and technical experts who provide pro-bono time and expertise to advance community priorities; and the Community Science Fellows who facilitate projects and help keep them moving forward, we wouldn’t be here.
Fellows engaged in 2021
January
American Meteorological Society (AMS) and Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC)
- Rosanne McConnell
- Kimberley Drouin
- Vineet Jagadeesan Nair
- Zachary Hurst
- Max Cawley
- Devin Jefferson
- Susan Lamb
- Shane Montoya
- Irmarís Rivera
- Yanet Lopez
February
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) cohort
- Jason Brown
- Laura Aponte Díaz
- Tamara Hillman
- Ashley Spink
- Erin Crandall
- Loagan Clements
- Margaret Cumberland
- Lori Petrauski
- Arlene Megill
- Janelle Hakala
April
- Megan Duffy
- Lauren Prox
- Matthew Preisser
- Jason Polk
- Carson Witte
- Eimy Bonilla
- Christopher Jernigan
- Caitlin Mandeville
- Gayatri Girirajan
- Abra Atwood
- Gabrielle Tepp
- Paula Buchanan
July
- Yusraa Tadj
- Jessica Sutton
- Sophia Huss
- Tatiana Eaves
- Lienne Sethna
- Kate Evans
- Shelby Johnston
- Arka Mitra
- Priyanka Kushwaha
- Kathrin Schilling
- Ishita Pal
- Sarah Schulkowski
October
National Park Service and Anthropocene Alliance
- Halle Race Bradshaw
- Hasibe Caballero-Gomez
- Elena Perez
- Alex Christensen
- Lara Noren
- Dana Kochnower
- Taylor McKie
- Abraham Miller-Rushing
- Ashley Pipkin
- Claudia Santiago
The commitment and passion of our volunteers is augmented by our supporters and champions, whose dedication shone through from our board, funding supporters the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation & California Strategic Growth Council, and AGU leadership. 2021 also saw dedicated new staff members join our team as our program continues to grow and evolve.
Highlights from a Year of Growth
An appetite for community science
The culture of science—and its perceived role in society—is changing. With our focus on community-driven science, Thriving Earth welcomes and encourages these shifts. Our staff and project participants are increasingly being asked to share their experience and knowledge about how to cultivate equitable, impactful partnerships between communities and scientists.
In 2021, Thriving Earth staff were invited to share at over 35 international and U.S.-based events, including the American Meteorological Society Summer Policy Colloquium and the International City/County Management Association Annual Conference. Thriving Earth staff members also serve as advisors for organizations including C2P2, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Denver Institute for Science and Policy, the Denver Sustainability Advisory Council Science and Research Standing Committee, Emerging Geoscience Scholars, FieldScope, IDEAL Citizen Science Working Group, ISET International, the LISTEN network, the NOISE project, Public Lab, SCoPEx, and and the EAGER research project “Equity on Scientific Co-production Processes: Creation of a Framework,” funded by the National Science Foundation’s Science of Science program.
Advancing community science across the globe
AJGES team members in the field. Photo credit: AJGES
The reach of Thriving Earth Exchange has long extended beyond our national borders. This year, we trained two new international partners on our community science approach: Hano Wene in Indonesia and the South Trelawny Environmental Agency in Jamaica. Look for updates on projects stemming from those collaborations in 2022! We also continued to build on existing partnerships with Future Earth Australia and the Association of Young Geologists and Environmentalists of Senegal (AJGES), which launched their first community science projects in Tallangatta, Victoria and Senegal’s Fatick region, respectively. In addition, we hosted a town hall event at AGU’s Fall Meeting in collaboration with Future Earth Australia, which we anticipate will encourage more Future Earth national committees to adapt community science in their activities.
In collaboration with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and USAID’s Partnerships in Enhanced Educational Research (PEER) program, we also hosted two webinars for Cambodian researchers on integrating community science principles into their work. USAID subsequently adapted Thriving Earth’s community agreements template as a key criteria for assessing proposals for USAID PEER grants and invited our team to present the results of the Cambodia webinars to USAID headquarters and other country teams in 2022.
Diversity, inclusion, equity and justice
Throughout this past year, we were heartened to witness a marked shift in the scientific community as more individuals and organizations embraced diversity, inclusion, equity and justice as celebrated tenets of the scientific endeavor. These values are central to the community science model, but they have not been universally appreciated by scientists and scientific organizations, who sometimes see them as diluting the emphasis on science, stepping into advocacy, or alienating some groups. At Thriving Earth Exchange, we are encouraged by this change and dedicated to making it stick. This work has taken a variety of forms:
- We’re expanding our engagement with communities of color, seeking resources to support community leaders and fellows who don’t have the resources to be volunteers, and continuing the Neighborhood Fund, which puts budgets for science into the hands of community leaders. We are also growing our communications and education capacity so that we can better amplify community stories.
The Community Science Exchange is a new, multi-faceted platform for networking and advancing community science practice and principles.
- This year we were instrumental in launching the new Community Science Platform, an initiative of AGU along with the American Anthropological Association, American Meteorological Society, American Public Health Association, Citizen Science Association, and Unión Geofísica Mexicana. The platform includes both a journal and a knowledge exchange to allow scientists and community leaders to contribute to, get credit for, and benefit from community-driven work.
- We have helped amplify community presence in AGU’s events portfolio, as exemplified in the itinerary for community science at Fall Meeting and AGU’s support for the Rhythms of the Land workshop and art exhibit.
- We participated in an effort to foreground indigenous knowledge and leadership within AGU, an effort that led to the establishment of AGU’s new Indigenous Action Committee.
Media moments
We were excited to see in-depth, thoughtful media coverage for several partner communities this year. In addition, our own blog and social media were extremely lively with project happenings and conversations. Here are a few highlights:
- In November 2021, we published an in-depth story on a project in Glastonbury, Connecticut investigating uranium in the town’s drinking water. It was featured in our display at #AGU21, and we plan to share it with partners past, current and future to demonstrate how Thriving Earth Exchange projects develop, weather challenges (like the COVID-19 pandemic) and benefit their communities long after they are complete. The team’s final report-out was featured in the Manchester Journal Enquirer. Stay tuned for more of these “marquee project stories” in 2022!
- Queen Quet, who is leader of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and serves as Thriving Earth Exchange community lead for a project on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, was interviewed for the powerful ABC Nightline Keepers of the Land story.
-
Community leads Amy Stelly and Tamah Yisrael stand under highway I-10 in the 7th Ward, December 2021. Photo credit: Beth Bagley/AGU
Northern California Public Radio published an excellent episode of its Living Downstream podcast on the Salton Sea and the scientists, students and community members who are striving to understand its impact on environmental and public health. The community is engaged in an ongoing Thriving Earth project, among other efforts.
- As the U.S. infrastructure bill took shape this year, inequitable development became a national conversation, with New Orleans’ Claiborne Avenue and the devastating impacts of Interstate 10 at its center. Thriving Earth project community lead Amy Stelly published an essay in the Washington post about her experience with the highway, and several major outlets took deep dives into highway removal.
In Their Own Words: Community Science Perspectives
To close out the year, we created a video featuring testimonials from our scientists, community leads, fellows and partners from South Dakota, Senegal, New Jersey, Jamaica, Mississippi, South Carolina, California and more. We hope you enjoy this brief reflection on a remarkable year and look forward to working with you in 2022!
