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

孩子们在学校大楼里花了大量的时间。因此，学校的环境条件影响着学习环境，直接影响着孩子的健康和教育结果。由于接触环境毒素，如饮用水中的铅和空气传播的病原体，导致的学习成绩和认知能力的丧失很难逆转。因此，改善学校建筑环境和基础设施可以通过改善社区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)研究评估了密歇根州弗林特的学校创造健康水的技术，这些学校在后续的第二阶段项目中开展了类似的活动来改善空气质量。这项研究还涉及与家长、监护人、教师和学校管理人员合作，开发沟通和信息共享方法，围绕为保护儿童在学校免受各种毒素和污染物伤害而实施的技术建立信任和知识。这个第一阶段项目的工作重点是消除饮用水中的铅，因为它是一种已知的神经毒素，即使在低浓度时也会对儿童大脑发育有害。用来去除铅的传统方法与饮用水中细菌的增加有关，因此会造成其他潜在的有害影响。项目研究的重点是确定导致学校环境中不健康的水的广泛的技术和社会因素。它使用新颖的社区居民小组共同产生知识，以告知和提高研究人员和学校管理人员对家长和学生的关切以及他们对弗林特学校系统环境安全的问题的理解。小组和其他社区外联活动将用于发展社区支持和对解决方案的信任，以保持公立学校系统的空气和水的健康，从而使儿童能够茁壮成长和学习。这项工作的更广泛影响包括用于饮用水过滤系统污染物/毒素突破的早期预警的新技术，以及测试和记录新的社区互动进程，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，有可能推广到其他有类似问题的社区。这项研究以密歇根州弗林特市的学校系统为试点，重点研究社区互动以及学校建筑补水站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/工作人员/家长学习的潜力和价值，使用社区信任的、透明的方法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，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加水站更换过滤器。来自密歇根大学的研究人员以及由学生、教师和家长组成的团体将参与一个过程，为加油站设计实用和可持续的维护和监测计划，并指导如何与社区共享及时的加水站性能信息。社区部分包括创建一个项目规划咨询委员会，该委员会生成访谈问题，以了解个人、组织和机构利益相关者的关切和想法。虽然这种方法最初用于弗林特，但可以在全国范围内推广和部署。访谈问卷将有助于确定我们在饮用水滤水站的使用和性能方面的主要知识差距，了解水质历史较差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校舍安全用水存在的看法和紧张局势。该方法认可了值得信赖的社区个人的关键的、持续的参与和当地知识，这是有效实施和维护市政问题的技术解决方案所必需的。该项目是对公民创新挑战计划的回应-轨道B-弥合基本资源和服务与社区需求之间的差距-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.