CIVIC-PG Track B: Community Knowledge-Inspired Decisions for Schools (Community KIDS)

孩子们在学校里度过了大量的时间。因此，学校的环境条件影响着学习环境，直接影响着儿童的健康和教育成果。由于接触饮用水中的铅（Pb）和空气传播的病原体等环境毒素而导致的学业成绩和认知能力的丧失是难以逆转的。因此，改善学校建筑环境和基础设施可以通过改善儿童的健康和学习成果来影响社区的未来。这项公民创新挑战（Civic Innovation Challenge，简称Civic）的研究评估了在密歇根州弗林特市（Flint）的学校创造健康水的技术，在后续的第二阶段项目中，该校开展了类似的改善空气质量的活动。该研究还涉及与家长、监护人、教师和学校管理人员合作，制定沟通和信息共享方法，以建立对保护在校儿童免受各种毒素和污染物侵害的技术的信任和知识。这个第一阶段项目的工作重点是去除饮用水中的铅，因为铅是一种已知的神经毒素，即使浓度很低，也会对儿童的大脑发育有害。用于除铅的传统方法与饮用水中细菌的增加有关，从而造成其他潜在的有害影响。项目研究的重点是查明导致学校环境用水不健康的各种技术和社会因素。它采用新颖的社区居民小组来共同生产知识，以告知和提高研究人员和学校管理人员对家长和学生所关心的问题以及他们对弗林特学校系统环境安全的理解。小组和其他社区外展活动将用于发展社区支持和信任解决方案，以保持公共学校系统的空气和水的健康，使儿童能够茁壮成长和学习。这项工作的更广泛影响包括对饮用水过滤系统中的污染物/毒素突破进行早期预警的新技术，以及测试和记录新的社区互动过程，以重建对失去社区信任的市政服务的信任。这项研究的结果如果成功，将有可能推广到其他有类似问题的社区。本研究以密歇根州弗林特的学校系统为试点，重点关注社区互动和学校建筑水合站的过滤技术和方法的开发、安装和使用，为学龄儿童创造健康的学习环境。它还将探索学生/员工/家长学习的潜力和价值，使用社区信任、透明的方法来传播信息，并建立对公民服务提供者的信任。这项工作最初将侧重于早期预警系统的性能和技术开发，该预警系统表明需要为2022年2月安装在弗林特社区学校的78个先进的使用点饮用水水合站更换过滤器。来自密歇根大学的研究人员以及学生、教师和家长团体将参与一个过程，为水合站设计实用和可持续的维护和监测计划，并指导如何及时与社区分享水合站的性能信息。社区部分包括创建一个项目规划咨询委员会，该委员会产生面试问题，以了解个人、组织和机构利益相关者的关注点和想法。虽然该方法最初用于弗林特，但可以在全国推广和部署。访谈问卷将有助于确定我们在饮用水过滤站的使用和性能方面的主要知识差距，了解历史上水质较差的地区对学校饮用水的负面看法，以及不同年龄、角色和专业知识的不同受访者之间的差距和主题。这一过程将使人们更好地了解围绕学校建筑安全用水存在的看法和紧张关系。这种方法认识到，要长期有效地执行和维持市政问题的技术解决办法，就需要值得信赖的社区个人的关键、持续的参与和当地知识。该项目是对公民创新挑战项目（track b）的回应，旨在弥合基本资源与服务和社区需求之间的差距，是国家科学基金会、国土安全部和能源部之间的合作项目。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Children spend significant time inside school buildings. Therefore, the environmental conditions in the schools impact the learning environment and directly influences both the health of kids and their educational outcomes. The loss of academic achievement and cognitive performance due to exposure to environmental toxins like lead (Pb) in drinking water and airborne pathogens is difficult to reverse. Thus, improving school building environments and infrastructure can impact a community’s future by improving the health and learning outcomes of its children. This Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) research evaluates technologies that create healthy water in Flint, Michigan, schools with similar activities to improve air quality in a follow-on Stage 2 project. The research also involves working with parents, guardians, teachers, and school administrators to develop communication and information sharing methods to build trust and knowledge around the technologies put in place to protect children while they are in school from various toxins and contaminants. Work in this Stage 1 project focuses on removing lead in drinking water because it is a known neurotoxin that is harmful to childhood brain development, even at low concentrations. Traditional methods used to remove lead are linked to increases in bacteria in drinking water, thus posing other potential harmful impacts. Project research focuses on identifying the broad range of technical and social elements that lead to unhealthy water in school environments. It employs novel, community-resident panels for the co-production of knowledge to inform and improve the understanding of researchers and school administrators of parent and student concerns and the questions they have about the Flint school system's environmental safety. The panels and other community outreach activities will be used to develop community support and trust in solutions to keep the air and water of the public school system healthful so children can thrive and learn. Broader impacts of the work include new technology for the early warning of contaminant/toxin breakthrough in drinking water filtration systems and the testing and documentation of novel community-interaction processes for rebuilding trust in municipal services that have lost the trust of the community. Results of the study, if successful, have the potential to scale to other communities with similar problems. This research focuses on community interaction and the development, installation, and use of filtration technology and methodologies for school building hydration stations that creates a healthy learning environment for school-aged children using the Flint, Michigan school system as a pilot. It will also explore the potential and value of student/staff/parent learning using community-trusted, transparent methods for getting the word out and building trust in civic service providers. The work will initially focus on performance and development of technology for an early warning systems indicating the need for filter changes for 78 advanced point-of-use drinking water hydration stations that were installed in Flint Community Schools February 2022. Researchers from the University of Michigan and groups of students, teachers, and parents will participate in a process to design practical and sustainable maintenance and monitoring plans for the stations and guide how timely hydration station performance information is shared with the community. The community piece involves creation of a Project Planning Advisory Council that generates interview questions to understand concerns and thoughts of individual, organizational, and institutional stakeholders. Although being used initially for Flint, the approach can be scaled and deployed nationally. Interview questionnaires will help identify major gaps in our knowledge about the use and performance of drinking water filtration stations, understanding negative perceptions regarding school drinking water in areas with a history of poor water quality, and gaps and themes across different interviewees with a range of ages, roles, and expertise. The process will provide a better understanding of the perceptions and tensions that exist around safe water in school buildings. The approach recognizes the critical, sustained involvement and local knowledge of trusted community individuals that is required for technical solutions to municipal problems to be effectively implemented and maintained over time.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.