Climate change impacts, environmental hazards, and natural disasters have become pervasive and drastic. Communities across the globe require tailored tools and solutions that improve their unique capacity to mitigate, respond, and rebuild from devastating events and maintain life with quality. Their success relies on the initiative, collaboration, and input from and with communities and experts across disciplines – including the technical and social sciences. These tools and solutions may be technology driven (e.g., low-cost sensor deployment to assess air and water quality) or policy driven (e.g., climate action plans) – they are by necessity iterative, interconnected, and evolving –, but ultimately reside in community priorities. This community-led, interdisciplinary approach pushes beyond the traditional participatory framework of citizen science and puts community priorities first.
This session aims to showcase ongoing and upcoming community-led science efforts and discuss how science-based approaches can be leveraged to help build resilience to climate and environmental crises. This interdisciplinary forum will bring together community leaders, scientists, technology developers, and policy professionals and drive discussion on how to best i) identify regional and local environmental priorities, ii) equitably bring community regional and local knowledge and context to the table, and iii) inclusively equip communities with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds with science-based tools.
Submissions related to community-science project development, technology design, development, or deployment for environmental/climate monitoring (e.g., optical sensors, weather stations, and data aggregation tools), and communicating environmental data in an educational or policy context are welcome. Topics focused on air and water quality, climate (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions and urban heat islands), environmental contaminants (e.g., microplastics, pathogens, and toxins), and resource management (e.g., water scarcity) are particularly encouraged.