CIVIC-PG Track A: Smart Kids and Cool Seniors

该项目帮助低收入老年人更好地应对公共住房中高温压力、糟糕的空气质量和通风不良等复合威胁。这是新泽西州伊丽莎白市的城市社区和罗格斯大学的研究人员合作的成果。贫困造成多重压力，限制了青年的机会，增加了弱势群体的累积环境健康风险。解决方案应该使这些人和更广泛的社区成员能够更有效地采取行动。因此，该项目将老年人和青年聚集在一起，为公共住房中的弱势青年提供STEM教育方案，以实现共同的目标。这些年轻人和他们的大学合作者将部署一个廉价的传感器网络，以测量整个城市的室外环境条件，以及老年人公寓的室内环境条件，并将基于收集的数据与社区成员实时分享见解，以便他们能够采取相应行动。该项目将为(1)避免暴露在高温和糟糕的空气质量下的住宅行动，(2)倡导对突出的室外空气污染者和室内降温权进行监管的社区团体行动，(3)优先改善城市环境的市政行动，以及(4)改善公寓楼内环境条件的住房当局行动，建立更坚实的基础。该项目在一个网络中部署了大量廉价、中等质量的空气污染物和温湿度测量传感器，在固定点的网格上进行实时远程数据检索，并增加了移动传感器-个人暴露监测器-由陪同老年人在城市周围正常旅行的年轻人携带。该大学的研究团队将创建一个建模平台，监测传感器性能，根据传感器数据插补当地环境条件，比较室外和室内条件，并通过手机应用程序、本地接入电视频道和视频显示器向居民推送可行的信息和建议，这些视频显示器正在预算外安装在住房管理局拥有的楼梯间建筑中。该平台将服务于社区参与进程，将年轻人和老年人聚集在一起，围绕减少老年人累积的环境脆弱性和增加儿童接触STEM知识的共同目标。该项目：(1)关注多层次城市背景下的人类代理；(2)应用机器学习技术帮助解决传感器质量和覆盖范围之间的预算权衡；(3)扩展数字结对策略，以处理室内和室外问题的解决；以及(4)授权社区确定现实的改进。该项目是对公民创新挑战计划的回应-轨道A。生活在不断变化的气候：围绕适应、复原力和缓解的灾前行动-是NSF、国土安全部和能源部的合作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project helps low-income seniors cope better with the compounding threats of heat stress, poor air quality, and poor ventilation in public housing. It is a collaboration between the urban community of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and researchers at Rutgers University. Poverty imposes multiple stressors that limit opportunities for youth and increase cumulative environmental health risks for vulnerable people. Solutions should empower these people and members of the broader community to act more effectively. Thus, the project brings seniors and youth together for a common purpose in a STEM education program for disadvantaged youth in public housing. The youth and their university collaborators will deploy an inexpensive sensor network to measure environmental conditions outdoors throughout the city, and indoors in seniors’ apartments, and will share insights based on the data collected with community members in real time so that they can act accordingly. This project should build a firmer basis for (1) residential actions to avoid exposure to heat stress and poor air quality, (2) community group actions to advocate for regulation of prominent outdoor air polluters and an indoor right to cooling, (3) municipal actions to prioritize civic improvements, and (4) housing authority actions to improve environmental conditions within apartment buildings. The project deploys a large number of inexpensive, moderate-quality air pollutant and temperature/humidity measurement sensors in a network with real-time remote data retrieval at a grid of fixed points, augmented with mobile sensors—personal exposure monitors—carried by youth accompanying seniors on their normal trips around the city. The university research team will create a modeling platform that monitors sensor performance, interpolates local environmental conditions based on the sensor data, compares outdoor and indoor conditions, and pushes actionable information and recommendations to residents by means of cellphone apps, a local-access TV channel, and video displays being installed off-budget in stairwells buildings owned by the housing authority. This platform will serve a community engagement process that brings youth and seniors together around the common goals of reducing seniors’ cumulative environmental vulnerabilities and increasing children’s exposure to STEM knowledge. The project: (1) focuses on human agency in the multi-level urban context; (2) applies machine learning techniques to help solve budgeting tradeoffs between sensor quality and coverage; (3) extends digital twinning strategies to handle both indoor and outdoor problem solving; and (4) empowers communities to identify realistic improvements.This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program—Track A. Living in a changing climate: pre-disaster action around adaptation, resilience, and mitigation—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.