CIVIC-FA Track A: Youth-Centered Civic Technology, Science, and Art for Improving Community Heat Resilience Infrastructure

This Civic Innovation Challenge Full Award (CIVIC-FA) project addresses the risk of increasing temperatures in cities due to climate change. It develops and pilots a novel approach that integrates youth arts, science and technology, and spirituality. The planned activities provide governments and residents with rich data to guide their planning and mitigation efforts. The project brings together academic researchers, government officials, and civic organizers to facilitate healing from trauma and planning for the future. Central to climate change adaptation and resilience is the creation of meaningful roles for youth as well as a deep understanding of organizational partnerships. The project also explores how technology can make decision-making more inclusive. Within cities, historically marginalized neighborhoods often have measurably higher temperatures and fewer resources to reduce heat-related risks. Engaging with the residents living in those neighborhoods is critical yet difficult, due to the legacies of discriminatory urban planning practices that have left deep traumas. The Roanoke Method (trauma-informed resilience planning) is developed to support community well-being and healing through public policies. The project evaluates how participation in cross-organization partnerships affects conceptualizations of the problem of urban heat and potential solutions. The team also creates new digital platforms designed to present past, present, and future visions of the city in the context of shocks and disasters. The activities and training materials produced from the research-civic partnership could be transferable to other cities facing similar challenges including limited organizational capacity, mistrust between residents and government, and pressing needs to adapt built environments to climate change. The CIVIC Innovation Challenge is a collaboration with Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Science Foundation 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.