Translating Domestic Community Science Lessons to Build and Sustain International Partnerships: The Thriving Earth Exchange Experience
Abstract
Communities around the world today face intense and increasing challenges related to climate change, natural hazards and natural resources management. More and more, communities are turning to other avenues to support their environmental-, sustainability-, or pollution-related priorities. And, not all communities have equal access to science. As result, they are turning to scientists to access the science they need to develop tools and solutions to address their priorities.
Thriving Earth Exchange, a program of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), promotes the notion of community science - communities and scientists working together to develop locally impactful tools and solutions. Community science is effective because it acknowledges local knowledge and encourages application of scientific research. This new way of doing Earth and space sciences can encourage greater application and relevance of science for many communities who have to date felt alienated and separate from it. Thriving Earth Exchange helps volunteer scientists and community leaders work together to use science, especially Earth and space science, to tackle community issues and advance local priorities related to sustainability and resilience. Thriving Earth Exchange recruits scientists with the right scientific expertise and social skills to partner with local communities to address specific community challenges. Since 2012, Thriving Earth Exchange has grown from 5 pilot projects to over 82 community science partnerships, predominantly in the United States. We have learned lessons about how to do community science domestically since 2012 and we see several opportunities into how we might do international community science better. In this presentation, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges of community science as Thriving Earth Exchange looks beyond US borders, by examining some of the domestic lessons learned. By showing how certain lessons could translate internationally and inspiring other scientific societies, we expect to demonstrate how community science can increase the relevance of the geosciences and revolutionize international development.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMPA41C1339U
- Keywords:
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- 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATIONDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1637 Regional climate change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES