CIVIC-FA Track A Smart Kids and Cool Seniors

这个公民创新挑战大奖（CIVIC-FA）项目试点创新的解决方案，以帮助低资源的城市居民，因为他们适应日益增加的热压力和当地的空气污染，无论是在室内还是室外。它还试图了解是什么增强或减弱了适应能力。该项目发生在一个环境正义社区，该社区位于人口稠密的大都市的中心，忍受着炼油厂、主要高速公路、大型港口和国际机场产生的空气污染。居民在夏季也遭受越来越多的热压力。环境危害和贫困的综合影响威胁着居住在公共住房中的老年人的健康和福祉。此外，生活在这些地区的年轻人往往缺乏学习和发展STEM技能的机会。一个由当地非营利组织、公共住房管理局和附近一所大学领导的社区合作项目旨在通过一个大胆的项目来缓解这些问题，该项目将青年和老年人聚集在一起，描述室内和室外空气质量和热条件，并制定解决方案。该项目支持社会努力制定有效应对持续气候变化的措施。了解低资源种群适应能力的现实程度是环境社会科学中的一个重要问题。该项目开发了一个固定的室外和室内空气污染和温度传感器网络，为居住在公共住房中的年轻人提供配备环境传感器的背包，以便他们沿着老年人使用的路线携带，以测量个人暴露，建立一个公众可访问的数据中心，该中心的设计考虑了一系列社区利益相关者的意见，并建立了一个称为动态数字孪生模型的建模平台，以代表公共房屋委员会的建筑物和周围的社区。该平台将支持对家庭解决方案的“假设”探索（例如，DIY空气过滤器）、企业解决方案（例如，空调改造），社区解决方案（例如，绿荫树）和政策解决方案（例如，建立空调的权利）。多方面的参与和沟通战略将有助于社区成员有效地使用这些信息。数码孪生将帮助房屋委员会管理其设施。参与该项目的年轻人将在一个高度可复制的项目中获得STEM技能。该项目增加了对弱势居民在热浪和空气污染事件中的行为选择和适应能力的经验和概念知识，突出了在个人，组织和机构的多个层面采取建设性行动的潜力。CIVIC创新挑战赛是与能源部，国土安全部，该奖项反映了NSF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。

This Civic Innovation Challenge Full Award (CIVIC-FA) project pilots innovative solutions to assist low-resource urban residents as they adapt to increasing heat stress and local air pollution, both outdoors and indoors. It also seeks to understand what enhances or diminishes adaptive capacity. The project takes place in an environmental justice community in the heart of a densely populated megalopolis that endures air pollution emanating from oil refineries, major highways, a large port, and an international airport. Residents also suffer from increasing heat stress during the summer months. The compounded effects of environmental hazards and poverty threaten the health and well-being of seniors living in public housing. Moreover, young people living in these locations often lack opportunities to learn and develop STEM skills. A community collaborative led by a local non-profit, a public housing authority, and a nearby university seeks to mitigate these problems with a bold project that brings together youth and seniors to characterize indoor and outdoor air quality and thermal conditions and to develop solutions. This project supports society’s efforts to develop effective responses to ongoing climate change. Understanding the realistic extent of adaptive capacity in low-resource populations is an important question in environmental social science. The project develops a network of fixed outdoor and indoor air pollution and temperature sensors, provides youths living in public housing with environmental sensor-equipped backpacks to carry along routes used by seniors to measure personal exposures, establishes a publicly-accessible data hub, designed with input from an array of community stakeholders, and builds a modeling platform known as a dynamic digital twin to represent the public housing authority’s buildings and surrounding neighborhoods. This platform will support “what-if” explorations of household solutions (e.g., DIY air filters), enterprise solutions (e.g., air conditioner retrofits), community solutions (e.g., shade trees), and policy solutions (e.g., establishing a right to air conditioning). A multi-faceted engagement and communication strategy will help community members use this information effectively. The digital twin will help the housing authority manage its facilities. Youths participating in the project will gain STEM skills in a highly replicable program. The project adds to empirical and conceptual knowledge of vulnerable residents’ behavioral choices and adaptive capacity during heatwaves and air pollution episodes, highlighting the potential for constructive action at multiple levels spanning individuals, organizations, and institutions.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.