Update on Project Activities
This week, we took a step back from our sub-projects and examined the research questions we were asking. Some teammates were satisfied with their current paths of inquiry, but others had lingering questions that had been eliminated during earlier rounds of research planning. We also discussed how our colleagues at Hartnell had previously expressed interest in studying topics like mental health and public art, policing practices, and socioeconomic status in the Alisal. With Deland’s encouragement, we decided to reconsider these previously voiced ideas and invite team members to propose additional research questions through a shared Google document that we will reference during our Zoom meeting on Sunday. In the midst of this discussion, we also continued work on our sub-projects:
What We Observed and Learned One of the most gratifying parts of the research process has been finding so many great databases and archives. As we continue our research and ask more detailed questions about how we should define a “food desert” in the context of Salinas or how we can compare feelings of safety to crime metrics, we have often found resources that provide us with the demographic and spatial data we need, and in great detail. Our community partners, especially Krista Hanni of the Monterey County Health Department, have connected us with resources that will allow us to examine trends in the context of local government policies and even compare our findings across larger geographies. Critical Analysis As we reconsider our research questions, it is crucial that we balance feasibility with utility. We may come up with fascinating questions that could produce useful information for the City of Salinas, but we also need to come up with a well-defined plan to answer those questions within the few weeks we have left. It seems that many of the topics that most interest various team members are areas of expertise or past experience. For instance, Luis mentioned that it would be really interesting, and perhaps empowering, to research different types of public art and how those art forms influenced mental health. Luis also discussed his work with a local arts organization and cited instances of conflict between the city and artists. With this detailed knowledge of arts practices in Salinas, Luis could probably add this topic of investigation to the public health sub-project with little issue. However, trying to do a study on something like precisely tracking individual gang murders and tying them to historical events would also be useful to the city, but it would not feasible with the time and resources we have. Comments are closed.
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