Update on Project Activities
Patricia is working on an InDesign template for the informational booklet. She has also scheduled a meeting with Professor David Gonzalez to learn about his research on environmental impacts on communities of color. Maya has begun drafting the copy for the introductory informational booklet on air quality science, and is working towards completing a preliminary draft by this weekend. She has signed up for Professor Marshall Burke’s office hours (initially for this week, but rescheduled for next week) to conduct an informational interview, which she hopes will inform edits of the booklet so that it is scientifically comprehensive. Dani has been working on creating visual content for Brightline’s social media accounts and flyers such that they maintain a consistent “brand” across the educational campaign. She designed four Instagram infographics with answers to FAQs about the Clarity sensors and about air quality science, and she worked with Tori on re-designing the CCSROC flyers which will be hung up in small businesses and storefronts. Now, she is working with Daniela to incorporate feedback and make final edits. The template spreadsheet for data entry across sensors from around the Bay Area is in place. Connery is continuing to fill it out so there is a wider range of data than the two-day span available in the website. Connery has also sent a voicemail to his faculty contact, as well as an email to gain more information if an interview simply is not possible. Tori completed the FAQ final edits last week. She worked with the social media team this past week to develop a detailed communications strategy that provided an overview of the content we intend to post on our bi-weekly social media posts. Additionally, she and Dani have been collaborating to create the CYC and CCSROC flyers that will be posted in these two communities, providing them with information on air quality data and the QR code to check their air quality. What We Observed and Learned Connery has learned that the dataset currently available covers a relatively small timespan for any given time it’s observed, so any databases resulting from it need to be constantly updated, or there needs to be some functionality for finding the place the data is stored in the Clarity website. Tori has learned the value of capitalizing on our teams individual and shared skills. Through working with other members of the team, who have various skills, she has learned how valuable it is to have several different abilities and how we can use this variety to our advantage when collaborating on our projects. She has also observed how Brightline operates in terms of their social media network and their flyers and how she can both learn from their foundation and build upon it to improve some of their outreach strategies and materials. Maya has also appreciated the ways in which our team’s different strengths compliment each other. Our combined skill sets match nicely with the deliverables we are tasked to create for Brightline, and the delegation of different tasks as outlined in our Scope of Work has led to a very productive working environment thus far. Dani has learned more about the different stakeholders who rely on Brightline’s educational materials. By creating content for social media audiences, CCSROC tenant leaders, and CYC youth, she has better learned about catering to each group’s specific needs. This has only made more apparent the vast amount of information there is to convey about air quality science and about the Clarity sensors — all of which is central to Brightline’s air quality monitoring program. However, condensing all of that information to be accessible and digestible can be a challenge. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward Moving forward, Tori hopes that we can continue profiting from our weekly Wednesday meetings which have allowed us to touch base and work together on our projects. She hopes that by continuing to carve out time for our projects and utilizing each other and our project leaders as resources, we can continue to produce great quality work in a timely manner. Patricia's favorite part about the work so far is meeting the people that this impacts. She really enjoyed being at the SRO tenant meeting and was glad to see that their perspectives were being centered. Maya’s favorite part of this project is the creation of educational materials, and she is thinking through ways to make them as accessible, relevant, and helpful as possible. The team has discussed making the introductory informational air quality booklet available to schools and teachers as part of our distribution efforts; moving forward, Maya is considering also developing a supplementary lesson plan that could be available to teachers and parents and work in tandem with the booklet. She will suggest this idea to Eddie and Daniela after the draft for the booklet is complete. Unfortunately, one of our teammates was no longer able to continue with the project, so one challenge from the past week has been re-calibrating as a team to adapt and re-distribute some of the tasks. Lizzie offered a great deal of community organizing experience and graphic design skills, so we have been working together to come up with ways to adjust our responsibilities and stay on track with our timeline as much as possible. In terms of connecting our work to the readings and topics in class, one reflection we had upon reading Plan Bay Area is that Brightline’s project is addressing a niche that might be overlooked at a regional level. When listing environmental achievements, Plan Bay Area shares that regional annual particulate matter concentrations decreased by 39% between 1999 and 2015, adding a year to the lifespan of Bay Area residents. But which Bay Area residents? This statistic does not address disparities in air quality within the region. Because Brightline has a more focused scope on specific neighborhoods, the data our team will analyze over the course of the quarter will shed light on the ways air quality can differ within a region -- which will hopefully lead to beneficial sustainable policy outcomes. The Brightline Air Quality Monitoring Project is an example of the kind of good that results from the cooperation of government, non-profits, and community members! Comments are closed.
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