The Earth Stewardship Initiative brought together graduate students from interdisciplinary backgrounds to work with city officials to tackle environmental issues in Louisville. We used this team opportunity to apply graduate training to collaborate with city officials and community members to come up with designed solutions unique to the city of Louisville. In researching park connectivity and access, public health and contamination, flooding, and riparian zones, groups gathered background information, and then met with professionals at ESA, as well as City officials, and community members to help develop their project.
The City of Louisville has prioritized the connection of three urban parks: Shawnee, Chickasaw, and Portland Wharf Park, as critical sites for social justice and environmental sustainability. These parks and their surrounding areas are plagued by a history of segregation and mistrust between city officials and residents. Food insecurity is an issue within the community, placing an even greater importance on Chickasaw Pond water quality. Air quality is also an issue due to the surrounding infrastructure and factories. The City of Louisville would like to use the parks to develop an educational program for the city as well as a pipeline to bridge local community members into environmental jobs.
Results/Conclusions:
A goal of the Earth Stewardship Initiative is to develop a designed experiment that would satisfy the needs of both the city and its community members. During the week-long project, our group developed the concept of a “Living Classroom” at the three parks to help facilitate environmental education, gather data on air and water quality using monitoring stations, and improve access to greenspace. The team proposed building three stations at each park. Each station would be built on different surfaces (hardscape, softscape, and canopy cover) and would provide air quality data and educational signage and programming for community engagement. Additionally, we proposed placing a water quality monitoring station at Chickasaw Pond to develop “citizen scientists” within the community, allowing them to actively monitor pond health while also cultivating a relationship of trust between the city and community.
This experience helped team members understand the obstacles in interdisciplinary communication, as well as working with multiple stakeholders on a short time frame.