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Momentum continues to build as the first AGU Thriving Earth Exchange Community Science Hub projects celebrate the 1-year mark. Funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Community Science Hub initiative is building and supporting regional and topically focused hubs that are focused on community science.
Capacity Collaborative, Nurture Nature, Creation Justice Ministries and the Center for Hazardous Substance Research at Kansas State University have each been named Community Science Hubs. Each hub received $50,000 to recruit and launch the first group of community projects and will receive another $50,000 to continue supporting community projects through the end of 2025.
To learn more about how this initiative has been going, we spoke with Shari Rose, program manager for community leader engagement at Thriving Earth Exchange. Rose assisted the hubs in navigating the onboarding process and currently provides them with ongoing support. Noting that many hub projects come from historically marginalized communities, she said that the initiative has provided an opportunity for community members who have previously felt that their concerns have been dismissed or invalidated to pursue meaningful projects that reflect their true voice and priorities.
“The hub model is designed to foster a culture of collaboration, with members constantly networking, sharing resources and supporting each other,” said Rose. “It’s been exciting to see incredible enthusiasm from the communities and to watch them become very tightly knit within their hubs.”
Lessons learned
Rose says that one of the biggest challenges with getting the new projects off the ground was narrowing down the project scope. She uses a highly collaborative process to help communities sort through what are often multilayered priorities and develop a single achievable project goal.
“I look at how to synthesize their concerns into one issue that we can connect to a scientific expert working within our Thriving Earth Exchange community science model,” said Rose. “We want to establish an easy win — not to say that the work itself will be easy — but we’re looking for a more streamlined victory that we can build upon progressively.”
The process of matching with a scientist can also be challenging because the final project scope can seem overwhelming to experts who are volunteering their time. Rose works with the project leads to develop reasonable volunteer expectations, which in some cases, involves spreading out the workload among a team of experts.
Project updates
Most of the Community Science Hub projects launched in May, and communities are currently working to define their project scopes. However, Capacity Collaborative, started in October 2023, allowing many of its projects to make significant progress in the past year. (Read more about the hubs: Capacity Collaborative, Creation Justice Ministries, Center for Hazardous Substance Research at Kansas State University, and Nurture Nature.)
For example, Indoor Air Care Advocates (IACA), a group of concerned parents in Alabama, is working with Capacity Collaborative to establish a community lending program for indoor air quality monitors to better understand indoor ventilation needs and air quality in local schools. They have started lending CO2 monitors to local educators and students and providing them with reports and template letters to discuss findings with school authorities.
As part of their educational efforts, IACA designed unique cards inspired by the classic Garbage Pail Kids, illustrating how various viruses can linger in the air and how a DIY air purifier called a C-R Box can trap them. This initiative to raise community awareness was funded by the Thriving Earth Exchange neighborhood fund, which is generously supplemented by the Moore Foundation grant.
Community Lead Leah Kimble, representative of Cherokee Concerned Citizens, stands on the left next to AGU staff Michael Villafranca (middle) and Community Lead Dr. Angela Chalk (right) during a 2024 AGU Congressional Visit Day event.
A Capacity Collaborative project organized by Cherokee Concerned Citizens (CCC) in Pascagoula, Mississippi, is gathering scientific evidence to make a relocation case to the city. Their community — about 130 homes in the Cherokee subdivision — is considered a cancer hot spot, experiences severe environmental pollution from nearby industrial sites, and has a high flood risk.
Expanding upon their hub project, CCC recently submitted a proposal for EPA funding of a project that will bring together experts from community organizations and academic institutions to develop practical approaches for communities living near industrial sites to share their air pollution experiences and needs in a way that clearly portrays the personal effects and preferred solutions.
The Dynamite Hill – Smithfield Community Land Trust project in Birmingham, Alabama, is partnering with Capacity Collaborative to develop environmentally sustainable projects and establish a community land trust that honors the area’s civil rights and environmental legacies. The project team recently organized a community education program about ecology for high schoolers. Thanks to funding from YLACES and small Thriving Earth Exchange grants, they were able to acquire scientific equipment to use with the students.
Ensuring sustainability
One of the goals of the Community Science Hubs initiative is to build a vibrant, sustainable network where communities feel connected and supported within the larger Thriving Earth Exchange network, rather than isolated in their efforts.
“It’s been exciting to see the community science model expand through these hubs, especially since three out of four have never worked with us before,” said Rose. “I’m eager to see how we can continue growing, whether by adding more hubs or taking on additional projects within the existing ones.”
Read more about the Thriving Earth Exchange Community Science Hubs initiative here.
This work is generously supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
