Geoscience and Sustainability at the Grassroots Level: The Role of Community Science
Abstract
In the United States and internationally, climate change, natural hazards and natural resources issues disproportionately affect poor, socio-economically marginalized, and historically disadvantaged communities of color that are least able to adapt largely due to a lack of the necessary resources, such as technical expertise. At the same time, the geosciences are characterized by a small percentage of people of color coupled with a growing perception among scientists that there is little general understanding of scientific research and that geosciences rarely affect policy decisions.
To address these challenges AGU has been radically advancing community science. Community science is defined as the process by which scientists and communities do science together to advance one or more community priorities. It encourages communities, particularly historically marginalized and oppressed communities, to guide, participate in, learn from, and benefit from science. Community science is designed to make a tangible local impact. When done well, it can enhance community capacity, advance equity, enrich scientific practices, diversify the sciences, address global challenges, and build public trust and support for science. In this context, "science" is understood to be an inclusive suite of activities (research, engagement, education, synthesis, and application) nested in a range of intersecting disciplines and ways of knowing with diverse cultural roots. Thriving Earth Exchange, a program of AGU, is leveraging Earth and space scientists to work with communities to address community priorities in climate change, natural hazards and natural resources. In this presentation, we will show, through a series of real-world community science partnerships, that by working with communities first geosciences can support the sustainability of communities thereby its continued relevance. We will describe some of the opportunities and challenges these partnerships pose in an international context, offer tips for scientists to do community science well, examples of how community science is being done internationally and preliminary results from an evaluation showing that community science does help marginalized communities advance their resilience and helps science and scientists contribute to decision-making.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMPA32D..13U
- Keywords:
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- 4327 Resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4328 Risk;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4345 Community management;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 6339 System design;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES