a research community

of civic scientists

description:

"The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab) is a community -- supported by a 501(c)3 non-profit -- which develops and applies open-source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. By democratizing inexpensive and accessible Do-It-Yourself techniques, Public Lab creates a collaborative network of practitioners who actively re-imagine the human relationship with the environment. The core Public Lab program is focused on "civic science" in which we research open source hardware and software tools and methods to generate knowledge and share data about community environmental health..." --from "About Public Lab"

For myself, the most remarkable part of Public Lab is the way in which they've built an enormous, highly active, international community. Public Lab uses a community organizing model, but it's one that's based on enthusiasm and generocity. It's difficult for me to describe where the solidarity comes from, but it's not based upon having a common interest in the stakes of environmental impacts (which of course we do). Rather, we are cohered by our belief in science research as a community practice, and as such, form must follow function. After I made a modification to someone's implementation of the DIY Spectrometer, one of the co-founders said something which captured it: the making of something the first time is interesting, but the second iteration by someone else is community.

contributions:

As the Chicago organizer, my goal has been to expose people to these types of tools, and connect with other people doing similar work in the area. It's also important to be a consistant participant within the Public Lab orgainizers community. The organizers community is largely responsible for the direction of the organization. To that end, here are some activities I have engaged in:

  • Building the Chicago civic science lending library with a grant we received from Sharable.
  • Five workshops for participants ranging from middle school students to graduate students to your average citizen in Chicago.
  • Establishing bonds with a community in the far south of Chicago which is using the Public Lab tools to fight against petcock piles on the Calumet river. The bond is in it's infancy, but it was more difficult to develop than I realized, and I hope I am successful in nurturing it further.
  • I remixed a modification to the DIY Spectrometer.
  • I contributed research on a DIY Spectrometer, youth workshops, and the quality of a number of webcams vs. different bottle types for the DIY oil testing kit.
  • I also devised a very popular solution to a significant challenge which is in the process of implementation. Public Lab is at a point in it's maturity where we are ready to participate in research within the traditional science community. In order to do this, we need to replicate experiments. However, not all tools and experiments are ready for replication, and if they are, there's no consistant structure for how to do so. Therefore, we will be using a new "replicate me" feature which will tag research as ready for this process. This feature will also provide a structure for how to submit the instructions and findings from both the original experiment and the replication.

challenges and lessons:

Ironically, I learned the most about community organizing in a place where I was mostly interested in the science. While the lifeblood of Public Lab is not environmental activism in the traditional sense, it's clear that the gateway to involvement for the vast majority of new people comes from organizing around an environmental impact. My interests and strengths were in being an evangelist for these tools and the practice of civic science. I learned that people come to church initially because of the environmental impact they want to fight against. As such, organizing around something is crucial.

future directions:

As a community, our next work lies in finding ways to make the research being performed acceptable in the traditional scientific community. This will mean carving out a space on the research wiki that meets a higher standard before it is published.

For myself, since I don't see myself staying in Chicago, I need to build enough of a community for it to continue without me. And of course, I also need to start a new chapter should I move to a city without one already.