"Throwing Shade in RVA" - piloting an informal education program for teens to develop green workforce skills by addressing urban heat inequality in public spaces

Climate change is exacerbated in urban areas due to the so-called urban heat island effect, which occurs when built structures in an urban area raise local temperatures relative to non-urbanized areas. In July 2017, the Science Museum of Virginia led a coalition of local non-profit, university, and government partners in a citizen science campaign to measure the City of Richmond's urban heat island. Results revealed a 16°F difference between the warmest and coolest places within the city at the same time. Further analysis shows that many of the warmest places are co-located within areas with majority populations of people of color, families below poverty level, and individuals with limited educational attainment. Additionally, residents in these areas suffer elevated rates of heat-related illnesses during the summer months, highlighting a clear environmental justice issue in the City of Richmond. In collaboration with urban heat campaign partner Groundwork RVA, a non-profit that engages public school youth to transform blighted spaces into public assets through community based greening strategies, we piloted an informal education program in Spring 2018. The program, known as "Throwing Shade in RVA," empowers Richmond youth to get involved in building resilience to extreme heat by greening up and shading Richmond's hottest neighborhoods. During the Throwing Shade program, participants engaged in a hands-on STEM exploration of urban heat both with models and field excursions, interacted with and interviewed two social and environmental justice professionals from the region, and designed and built their own shade-generating structure on the Groundwork RVA building. Pre- and post-program participant evaluation surveys identified significant increases in their self-assessed confidence in understanding the drivers, societal impacts, and solutions of the urban heat island effect (effect size 5.4 points, p-value <0.001, 95% CI 4.2-6.4 points), as well as significant increases in the complexity of the words used in their definition of "urban heat island" (36% increase in syllables used per word, 128% increase in unique words used). Throwing Shade in RVA is a model program for how non-profits and informal science centers can collaborate on climate education and action projects for positive community impacts.