Welcome to the Thriving Earth Exchange’s (TEX) blog space. The purpose of the blog is to inspire thinking, open-participation and discussion on particular topics or themes. We encourage you to leave comments on any blog post by clicking through to each post and sharing your thoughts at the bottom.
From John C. “Warner” Carag, Community lead: Several things have occurred since our online meeting. The March 9-10 fieldwork in the community pushed through, but I did not join at the last minute due to a personal matter. Also, it was decided a few days before that only the core group would proceed with the […]
During 2018 and early-2019, the City of Durango Sustainability Coordinator, Imogen Ainsworth, worked with local scientists, Laurie Williams and Joanna Gordon Casey to conduct a Community-wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory for the area inside Durango City Limits. In March 2019, after much collaboration, learning and some challenges, Imogen presented draft data to Durango City Council. […]
by Ned Gardiner and Fred Lipschultz Gone are the days when one needed a degree in computer science to understand climate history, projections and impacts. Since its launch, the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT) has provided information about changing climate-related risks alongside tools one can use to address those risks. Its newly updated Climate Explorer tool […]
By asking communities what they need, Thriving Earth Exchange and EPA’s College/Underserved Community Partnership Program (CUPP) have delivered expertise and lasting impact It started, like so many things, with a chance encounter at a conference. Mike Burns, an engineer working at the U.S. EPA, had launched a program to bring technical assistance […]
These project updates come straight from the communities and scientists we work with. Send your Thriving Earth liaison a quick update + photo and we’ll highlight your project in our next newsletter! From 7th Ward, New Orleans: Raising Sensors, money, and trees in the 7th Ward: Yasmin Davis (pictured) and Kayla Frand installed sensors […]
By Raj Pandya, Director, Thriving Earth Exchange One of the most important skills in community science is listening. After all, the whole goal of community science is to understand how science can be used in ways that advance community priorities and shared values. Hard to do that if you don’t know what those priorities […]
The data projected rising sea levels and an increase in high-tide inundation. But the study also offered approaches to solutions.
LSU student project designed to help Lower 9th Ward News Article: Blight to Bioswales: LSU CEE Student Project to Help Lower Ninth Ward
Lev Horodyskyj is an astrobiologist and educational innovator formerly with the Arizona State University’s Center for Education Through eXploration. He currently freelances and is developing his own cross-cultural science education projects. By Lev Horodyskyj I realized that I had stopped talking and that I was listening instead. I had no choice because I […]
News article: Upper 9th Ward residents call for new focus on blight Community leaders from A Community Voice organized a news conference on December 12th to demand that the city adopt a more comprehensive plan for addressing the abandoned and blighted properties dotting the 9th Ward. Residents are asking Mayor Cantrell to support a “sustainable […]
By Natasha Udu-gama, Senior Specialist, Thriving Earth Exchange AGU’s Fall Meeting is a flurry of events for almost everyone. In the midst of this year’s flurry, I had the opportunity to attend the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) Understanding Risk (UR) Forum Planning Meeting for the next Understanding Risk […]
By Julia Kumari Drapkin, CEO and founder, ISeeChange The word “empowerment” is a loaded bit of language. For years, I’ve used this word to describe the tools, platforms, and methods we’ve developed at ISeeChange to “empower” communities in adaptation and decision-making. The science community liberally uses the word too: “empowering society through science,” “empowering […]
On November 27th, Maryum Rasool and Saadia Shah made a trip from Flint, Michigan to Michigan State University in East Lansing to hear presentations from Dr. Jon Burley’s Landscape Design class. Teams of students presented their visions for possible green roof designs for the Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village (SBEV) in North Flint. “The brainstorms, concepts, […]
By Raj Pandya, Kevin Noone and Carol Finn As we end 2018, Thriving Earth Exchange has developed a way to connect Earth and space science to meaningful community impact and is moving from start-up to scale-up. Thriving Earth Exchange can also amplify a larger movement toward community science. It is customary to use the time […]
Thriving Earth Exchange emerged from a bold vision to better leverage science to benefit humanity through a more direct partnership between scientists and communities. Five years and more than 80 projects in, the phase of quiet experimentation is over. Thriving Earth Exchange, and the approach we call community science, has evolved, matured, and proved its […]
By Sarah Wilkins, Project Manager As a Thriving Earth Project Manager, I am always thrilled to see the world out from behind my computer screen: meeting a project team in person, visiting the lands of a First Nation or walking a neighborhood with a community leader. I was granted such a chance in late September […]
By Sarah Wilkins, Project Manager As a Thriving Earth Project Manager, I am always thrilled to see the world out from behind my computer screen: meeting a project team in person, visiting the lands of a First Nation or walking a neighborhood with a community leader. I was granted such a chance in late September […]
On November 2, 2018 Ocean City Flooding held a meeting at the public library to kick off their citizen science data collection with New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection Coastal Keepers Program. The partnership includes the City of Ocean City, the entire Ocean City School District (3 schools in total), and The Sea Grant Consortium. […]
Thriving Earth Exchange is excited to announce our Project Launch Workshop communities for Fall Meeting 2018: Community Country Topic/Theme Arlington, VA USA Clean energy and renewables Goldsboro, NC USA Coal ash contamination to air and water; Environmental justice Las Terrenas Dominican Republic Coastal erosion, coastal land loss Musoshi and Kasumbalesa Democratic Republic of the Congo […]
By Sarah Wilkins, Project Manager As a Thriving Earth Project Manager, I am always thrilled to see the world out from behind my computer screen: meeting a project team in person, visiting the lands of a First Nation or walking a neighborhood with a community leader. I was granted such a chance in late September […]
Here’s a video from Kevin McKinney, community leader and organizer of Flood Victims of Richwood. He is working with Thriving Earth Exchange hydrologist Steve Emerman to better understand flood risk and what to do about it. Here’s a Flood Forum USA video featuring Kevin sharing his dreams and aspirations.
New Orleans, LA Community leaders from Claiborne Avenue Alliance led a walking tour of the Claiborne corridor on September 15th for engineers, planners, architects, public officials and scientists—many of whom were attending the Walk Bike Places Transit Conference that week. The tour was co-organized with The Congress for New Urbanism to highlight the socio-economic and […]
As part of the American Geophysical Union’s Barnesville, Ohio Thriving Earth Exchange project, water sampling was conducted on two of the most pristine waterways in the state, Captina Creek and Cat’s Run. Dr. John Stolz, Director, Center for Environmental Research and Education at Duquesne University, is the Scientific lead for this project. He and his […]
This is part one of a two-part blog post about a new project in Jamaica aimed at simultaneously improving the island nation’s energy production, waste disposal, and agriculture. By Wale Adewunmi In Jamaica, tourism fuels the country’s economy. However, it also probably generates more waste than any other industry on the island. A […]
By Haley Gannon This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science. When I first came to the Thriving Earth Exchange, I was relatively new to the idea of community science. My experience up […]
By Shahan Haq This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science During an atmospheric chemistry course I took a few years ago, the professor would pause his lecture before major discoveries in the […]
By Babak J. Fard This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science. The Brookline, Mass. Thriving Earth Exchange project “Building Community Resilience to Extreme Heat” started in February 2016 with several initial meetings […]
By Angela Dapremont This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science I was fortunate to have a unique Thriving Earth Exchange internship experience during the summer and fall months of 2015. I started […]
By Caroline Stallard This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science As a second year medical student, I am constantly presented with opportunities to build my resume, contribute to science and give back to […]
By Ashley Collier-Oxandale This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science. Several years ago, I began working on a Thriving Earth Exchange project with Taking Neighborhood to Heart (TNH2H), a nonprofit in Northeast […]
By Abhishek Rao This blog is part of Students in Community Science, a series of Thriving Earth Exchange articles featuring students who have had internship, educational or volunteer experiences in community science. My involvement in Thriving Earth Exchange began in the fall of 2016 as an early career scientist on a Thriving Earth Exchange […]
By Melissa Goodwin Communities across the United States – and globally – are negatively affected by climate change. As these impacts grow in the future, communities must make plans and decisions to reduce their vulnerability. If done well, this planning makes a community not only less vulnerable to climate impacts, but also more resilient. Across […]
Climate change is a big, global problem. But climate action—the concrete, specific steps necessary to mitigate and adapt to climate change—is happening very much in the local sphere. Take, for example, the Global Climate Action Summit being held in San Francisco, Calif. this September. The event, timed to fall midway between two international climate meetings […]
Here’s a guest post from our partner and Director of Flood Forum USA, Harriet Festing: You’ve probably heard the phrase before; it’s become a cliché. But we want to introduce you to some real-life catalysts for change: our Flood Forum USA group leaders! Here’s what they’ve done: Susan Liley and Paula Arbuthnot from the Citizens […]
The Brandywine, MD – TEX project was featured in an August 2, 2018 WIRED article by Mejs Hasan: “This Community is Advocating for Air Quality – With Science.” “KAMITA GRAY AND her mom have spent a lot of time volunteering at Brandywine Elementary School, helping kindergarteners learn to write their names and making sure […]
Photo courtesy of Suzanne Hornick Ocean City Flooding, a flood group established to unite residents and property owners concerned about flooding and to coordinate efforts related to flood mitigation, continues to garner attention from local news outlets related to its efforts. In a Science Nature article from June 18th, Ocean City is mentioned as topping […]
Science isn’t the only way of knowing. How can we capture that nuance in our work and on our T-shirts? By Raj Pandya, Director, Thriving Earth Exchange One of the most important tips I’ve learned from the Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) and from working with communities is not to take science too seriously. As […]
Grappling with divisive issues, collaborators from multiple fields find common purpose TEX helps geoscientists and communities work together to solve problems. While it may be unconventional in the geosciences, this type of collaborative approach isn’t quite so new or radical in other fields. Indeed, the approach we call community science grew, in part, out […]
Bridging Community Information Gaps June 25, 2018 The impact of climate change is substantial, and indeed, climate-change induced droughts, heatwaves, floods, forest fires, and changes in disease transmission are already observable. These impacts vary considerably based location, and as such, cities and communities face the burden of dealing with the impacts and adapting to climate […]
This blog was originally posted on the AGU blog, From the Prow. Written by Carol Finn, AGU Past-President and United States Geological Survey Geophysicist, and Raj Pandya, AGU Thriving Earth Exchange Program Director During the last century, discoveries in Earth and space science have changed society’s understanding of the world around us and improved economic […]
$1.2 million allocated to projects to mitigate impacts of waste transfer station in predominantly African-American neighborhood Evanston, Ill., a diverse Chicago suburb bordering Lake Michigan, faces a number of issues around environmental degradation and extreme weather. The problem faced in one predominantly African-American, middle-lower income neighborhood has been particularly vexing. For decades, residents there have […]
Virginia Beach partnership engages residents and community leaders in discussion of flood risk Most community science projects are driven and sustained by a handful of dedicated individuals. But to make a real and lasting impact, the engagement can’t end there. In most cases, the small group at the heart of a project must find a […]
Brad Geismar, 2018 TEX Community Science Fellow for Colebrook, N.H. Located in northern New Hampshire close to the Canadian border, Colebrook, N.H. is a small town like many New England towns. Many of the town’s residents have ties to the community and its beautiful outdoor spaces that span generations. Unlike other small New England towns, […]
