Science Communication on Heat Adaptation: Connecting Community Members, Decision-Makers, and Researchers

Project Partner: Boston University School of Public Health & GreenRoots, Inc.

Project Summary: As the deadliest weather phenomenon, heat poses a dire threat, especially to residents of urban heat islands and environmental justice communities. The C-HEAT project, a partnership between BUSPH and GreenRoots, a grassroots environmental justice organization, has completed participatory action research with Chelsea and East Boston Residents, aiming to build community capacity to respond to extreme heat events. The project lacks a short-form medium for communicating the issues and findings for a broader audience. 

Leila partnered with Union of Concerned Scientists to write a blog post for their Science Network. The blog post describes the relationships with C-HEAT project partners (GreenRoots and community members) and presents findings from the Photovoice project, including examples of photos, captions, and calls to action from resident-researchers.

This post offers a form of science communication that the C-HEAT project needs to reach multiple audiences and amplifies community-engaged climate adaptation work.

Project Deliverable:

UCS blog post: https://blog.ucsusa.org/science-blogger/boston-area-communities-work-together-to-beat-the-heat/