| NSF Org: |
CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | August 19, 2022 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 19, 2022 |
| Award Number: | 2228377 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Vishal Sharma
CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2022 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $49,999.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $49,999.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
|
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
4333 BROOKLYN AVE NE SEATTLE WA US 98195-1016 (206)543-4043 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
4333 Brooklyn Ave NE Seattle WA US 98195-0001 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): | S&CC: Smart & Connected Commun |
| Primary Program Source: |
|
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Communities of color are often at the frontlines of environmental hazards. Research shows that people of all ages in such communities are disproportionally impacted by environmental hazards, including poor air and water quality. As worsening climate-related disasters, such as extreme heat, drought, floods, and wildfires, threaten communities across the United States, these frontline communities often experience the first and the worst of the impacts. In urban and rural communities alike, climate change and interrelated environmental hazards negatively affect local economies and people?s physical and mental health. To address these threats to prosperity and human well-being, new approaches are needed that enable communities to envision and build a resilient future. This project will develop tools to address this, specifically methods that empower communities to engage in resilience planning. The approach is place-based, focused on community values and aspirations, and emphasizes methods for envisioning a resilient future for themselves ? more healthy places to live, work, and enjoy recreation. The approach will position communities to identify their own challenges and solutions, thereby improving dialogue with technical experts and policymakers. The approach is multi-lifespan and intersectional, so that transformations can be sustained across generations. If successful, this research will build capacity in local communities for envisioning resilience and will lead to effective methods that can be employed in many other places.
In 2021, the Washington State Legislature passed the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act, which seeks to address environmental injustice. It does so in part by putting into law that State agencies must create the conditions for ?meaningful involvement? with overburdened communities, that is, with people who are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis. However, the HEAL Act does not say how meaningful public involvement is to take place. To address this gap, the project proposes to develop an Envisioning Resilience Toolkit and test it in community-driven workshops where community members learn how to create the conditions for meaningful involvement. This will be done by envisioning place-based resilience and defining place-based solutions in terms of social, technological, and ecological features. The Envisioning Resilience Toolkit will be piloted across the state of Washington with the goal of successfully achieving four research and practice outcomes: 1) improved capacity to plan for social and environmental resilience; 2) place-based, multi-lifespan conceptual models of resilience; 3) methods for mutual learning and dialog between community members and stakeholders; and 4) a versatile toolkit, which empowers overburdened communities in their interactions with State agencies.
This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program?Track B. Bridging the gap between essential resources and services & community needs?and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Communities of color and low-income communities are at the frontlines of the climate crisis, with alarming impacts on human health and wellbeing. These impacts include babies with low birth weights, children and adults with asthma, shorter life expectancies, fewer opportunities for learning about and participating in a sustainable future, among others. Frontline communities, furthermore, confront cumulative and intergenerational harms while also confronting inequities in public funding. Yet, public funding and technical expertise is essential for addressing current and anticipated environmental hazards.
Just Transitions is a comprehensive approach for addressing the inequities of frontline communities, inequities that are made worse by the climate crisis. The approach envisions a future where communities and the earth are healed and thriving, people have dignified work, and the government responds to the values and needs of frontline communities. One important step of Just Transitions is resilience planning, that is, place-based plans that will improve community and environmental well-being, now and for future generations. Resilience plans concern the natural, social, built, and informational worlds, along with their intersections. Once in the public sphere resilience plans catalyze dialogue; moreover, they better equip communities to advance their place-based values and interests while also creating the conditions for more meaningful and effective two-way dialogue with technical experts and government policymakers.
To support community-based organizations in the development of resilience plans, the Front and Centered Cards for Resilience Toolkit was developed. Drawing on value sensitive design, representatives of frontline communities engaged in a 3-month co-design process with the project team. This work led to a prototype of the toolkit, which includes a deck of 45 cards for users, facilitator’s deck of cards, and a facilitator’s guide. The toolkit focuses on the initial stages of resilience planning, namely envisioning and goal setting. It is intended to be used by facilitators from community-based organizations when planning and conducting workshops with community members. The deck of cards is organized in multiple suits: grounding (focused on identifying common understandings, definitions, and existing assets as a collective), shared values (focused on exploring community values, aspirations), resilience (focused on hazardous events or trends, capacities for adaption, and other elements of resilience thinking and imagining new social, ecological, or technical visions for resilience), impact (focused on discussing impacts of the changing climate and resiliency on communities), action (focused on next steps and taking practical action), and strategies (focused on discussing and identifying different pathways and solutions to building collective resiliency). Facilitators distribute the user cards that are image-based to encourage creativity and conversation, and also use the facilitator cards to prompt and scaffold conversations and design activities. Throughout the development and piloting of the toolkit, four evaluation criteria were used: effectiveness (the toolkit supports place-based resilience envisioning and action), appeal (frontline communities want to explore and use the toolkit), adaptability (the toolkit is flexible and can be readily extended and revised to be responsive to different cultures, settings, and uses), and versatility (the toolkit can be used for many purposes and by facilitators with varied backgrounds).
The key outcomes of this project were:
Method. A new two-tiered method for co-design. This method seeks to improve innovative capacity by bridging the experiential knowledge of front-line communities, policy knowledge of non-profit organizations that are working toward Just Transitions, and academic research on value sensitive design.
Toolkit. A prototype of Front and Centered Cards for Resilience Toolkit.
Evaluation criteria. Criteria for evaluating toolkits intended to support community-based organizations in resilience planning.
Last Modified: 02/11/2024
Modified by: David G Hendry
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
