Community Science News
Recent relevant news items about the practice of community science.
Can Ancient Maori Knowledge Aid Science? Ask These Freshwater Crayfish.
Synopsis: As a weed choked a New Zealand lake, a tribe found a surprising solution in a centuries-old tool, adding to a pitched debate over how Indigenous knowledge can complement conventional science.
Read the article by Pete McKenzie for the New York Times, June 1, 2022.
Climate change is putting ever-increasing pressures on air quality (e.g., wildfire). At the same time, society is attempting to rapidly decarbonize in order to limit climate change. A body of research over the last two decades has established that climate change can substantially affect global, regional, and local air quality and has illuminated the ways this occurs... This joint special issue will bring together experts addressing the threat to air quality, not only from accelerated climate change but also from climate action...
When Enrique Montes, a biological oceanographer, started work in 2014 to support a global community of practice, he was skeptical about whether the team could achieve its main goal: bringing scientists together around common tools and protocols for observing marine life. The key success factor, Montes knew, was that people would have to share their data. He thought he had an unachievable task on his hands...
Neighborhood researchers found nearly 400 active methane gas leaks from DC’s gas utility across all eight wards of the District of Columbia. Over the past year, volunteers from DC’s environmental and faith communities tested air from vents in utility access caps on DC streets and sidewalks using an industry-grade methane detector, finding hundreds of leaks, including over a dozen at or over the methane concentration at which an explosion is possible.
Last fall, AGU hosted a workshop to encourage the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch a new community science and resilience funding track through the Convergence Accelerator program. If successful, tens of millions of dollars in grant funding could be committed to projects around the country starting in 2023.
Indigenous and rural societies that have contributed least to the anthropogenic climate crises are facing its harshest consequences. One of the greatest challenges is the lack of predictability, especially at local scales. Indigenous and rural societies face an ever shifting “new normal” through increasing inconsistency in the seasonality of temperature and precipitation, and greater frequency…
The urgent threat posed by our climate crisis necessitates innovative actions that look beyond Earth sciences to emerging solutions that engage a diversity of knowledge systems, and in doing so, support the rising voices of those who have been historically marginalized.
Community Science Exchange is a new platform for advancing the practice and sharing the results of community science. Community science is the equitable collaboration of science with communities primarily aimed at outcomes for the benefit of communities. Work can be collaboratively or community-led. The platform includes a journal, Community...
A movement has been growing to advance collaborative, multi-disciplinary and solutions-oriented scientific work done in close partnership with community leaders and community members. This type of work with deeper collaborations is essential to address societal challenges, meet sustainability goals, and ...
