The Urban Ecology Program at Loyola Marymount University has received a $50,000 grant to train community-based scientists in monitoring and assessing the ecological status of their own communities.
The award from Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas will be used to establish a working partnership between the Urban Ecology Program and the Empowerment Congress, a not-for-profit organization focused on improving the lives of residents in the 2nd Supervisorial District, which is represented by Ridley-Thomas.
Participants will be taught scientific processes through collection and analysis of environmental data from their own backyards and neighborhoods. The goal is to spread knowledge about urban ecology and green technology throughout the district, while training residents to become “community-based scientists,” observant of patterns and conditions within their own environments.
The program will equip residents with scientific tools, including mobile devices and Web-based geographic mapping software, to analyze local environmental conditions and identify possible remedies to persistent problems. These community-based scientists will be encouraged to use these new tools and techniques, for instance, to gather data about water runoff pollution from an auto parts yard or to identify a former creek or wetland that is clogged with debris.
The training program will be run by Eric G. Strauss, President’s Professor in Urban Ecology, and LMU Visiting Scholar Ruth Galanter, Los Angeles councilwoman from 1987 to 2002. The grant will fund the program for two years, with the initial phase focused on training and recruitment, said Strauss.
The trained volunteers will take their newly acquired skills in urban ecology into the community, working to train others and engaging local groups to select and conduct environmental projects in their communities. During the first six months, between 25 and 30 volunteers will be trained and deployed. The project will help demystify science and improve the ecosystem and social health of local communities.
Ridley-Thomas created the Empowerment Congress in 1992, when he was a Los Angeles councilman. It now encompasses all the communities of the 2nd Supervisorial District — from Compton to Marina del Rey.
Strauss, who arrived at LMU this year from Boston College, helped create the Urban Ecology Institute in Boston, which provides educational, research and restoration programs to underserved neighborhoods in Massachusetts.
The study of urban ecology focuses the tools of environmental science on the urban setting, examining conditions in parks, wetlands, beaches, air and water pollution, plant and animal species, surface water runoff, rivers, and a host of other issues that define the interface between people and where they live.
It seeks to understand change and resilience within urban ecosystems, including land use, biodiversity, neighborhood wealth, public health, forest cover and energy metabolism, which requires enormous amounts of data.