Gowanus high schoolers with a budding interest in environmental science and stewardship need to learn new, tangible skills  in order to productively engage in their community, because seeing their own impact first-hand will create a lasting awareness of STEM fields.

How might we build on the existing curriculum in order to incorporate the flood sensors and leverage both the NYU FloodSense Team and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy apprenticeship program to support the Green Team interns' interest in environmental stewardship and community involvement?

Physical Context

Where does the learning happen?

The Green Team Apprenticeship program occurs in both classroom settings and in the field. The learners hub is the GCC, but the program takes field trips to locations relevant to the topic of interest on which the curriculum focuses.  Some learning about sensor placement could occur near the Gowanus Canal's Fourth Street Basin.

When does the learning happen?

The apprenticeship program has typically been held between May-August, but is projected for 2021 to begin in the Fall and last for one year (so it presumably can be held in person after mass vaccinations).  It consists of paid internship positions designed to “educate local youth, expand job opportunities, and cultivate awareness and urgency regarding the importance of environmental work". During the apprenticeship, instructors incorporate the installation and use of the FloodSense sensors in their current apprenticeship curricula. The unit will also become part of the curriculum that  the Gowanus Conservancy offers to public school teachers for delivery in classrooms across the public school system.

What are the physical constraints and affordances within the environment important to the experience and design?

The curriculum needs to consider that flood sensors need to be placed in areas around the Gowanus community and on streets and intersections where flooding typically occurs. Additionally, this will be the first time the flood sensors will find real-world use - possibly leading to usability issues.

Social Context 

Who is in the environment?

• • • Direct: apprentices, instructors, organizational staff, executive director, local Gowanus community

    • Indirect: NYU researchers

    • Mixed: NYC Public School Children, NYC Public School Teachers, NYC council members, NYC DEP, partnered non-profits

What are the roles of everyone in the environment?

• • • Apprentices: 8 apprentices each session, learners, they are the ones we are looking to engage and impart knowledge on.

    • Instructors: these are the people responsible for delivering the curriculum, facilitating social interactions, and providing scaffolding as needed.

    • Organizational staff & executive director: perform administrative functions related to the running of the program (recruiting & selecting applicants that would be a good fit, coordinating logistics of meeting times and materials, communication to participants, proper use of allocated funds)

    • Local community: benefits from the data gathered by understanding the impact of flooding and finding ways to mitigate them 

    • NYU Researchers: created the sensors, provide information on how to build them, how & where to install them, looking to receive data from posted sensors

    • Public school teachers and students: the GCC does offer this curriculum to school teachers as a way to supplement their standard curriculum and provide opportunities for high school students who weren't part of the apprenticeship to interact with this information

    • Partnered non-profits: funding

    • NYC Council & NYC DEP: data about flooding and water quality issues in local communities that can then be used for decision making and community improvement (and other political agendas)

What social interactions are important for the learners?

Interactions learners have with each other (these interactions could act as constructivist learning) and with Green Team intern facilitators (who would provide scaffolding to help students understand aspects of sensor building, deployment, and data).

Describe the broader social context?

As the Gowanus community experiences a large influx of residential development, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy increases their outreach efforts to the community. The curriculum can help organization staff incorporate the sensors and the importance of data collection into their other programs with similar objectives to the community. The leadership of the Conservancy can use the information for funding and public relations.

• Demographics: High school students approximately ages 14-18, who are members of Gowanus community and are low-income, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents.  No prior experience with soldering or manipulating software, or interest in STEM, is assumed. Learners are digital natives.

• Motivations: Learners have pre-existing interest in environmental advocacy; understand different roles/areas of study that exist in environmental research; financial motivations (paid-position); professional experience for resume; desire to be involved/give back to community; pre-exposed to the importance of environmental advocacy; direct impact

• Challenges: Potential for extrinsically motivated by pay; dealing with highly technical data; sensors being damaged would waste the money spent procuring the parts for them; technology and resources are not always accessible; maintaining the sensors; manipulating variables in the FloodSense software ends up being too difficult; managing the content difficulty level to keep tasks stimulating but achievable; building intrinsic motivation beyond the Green Team program and into future career paths and academic pursuits; sensors have not been implemented for real-world use prior to program (potential for hardware/software failure and usability issues)

• Opportunities: learners' interest in local community provides an opportunity to make global issues (such as climate change) more personal and provides context for making their community healthier by helping to provide hyperlocal information on floods (e.g. toxic water that the community can avoid); learners have prior interest in topic, therefore opportunity to create interest in future careers in green jobs via experience (e.g. getting to know some programming, engineering methodology, soldering) and networking with program partners (such as in places like government agencies and policy, community based non-profits, and in fields such as civil engineering, public health, community planning, mechanical engineering); opportunity for learners to seek mentorship from researchers at NYU; program alumni involvement (encouraging alumni to return to the program to volunteer, provide mentorship, and stay engaged in their community); learners given opportunity to contribute to larger conversation about conservation because of their work on the sensors; learners are digitally native - opportunity for digital community building via social media. 

• Goal 1: GCC Green Team apprentices will develop an awareness of the causes and effects of urban flooding, identify issues specific to their community, and advocate for environmental change socially and politically.

Apprentices will be able to:

• • recognize pollutants in Gowanus floodwater (e.g. "nasty bacteria and lead") and how those are detrimental to human health

  • explain how flooding disrupts infrastructure and adversely impacts individuals

  • identify initiatives currently underway, or being considered, that address local environmental issues

  • identify the different ways they can advocate for local infrastructure improvements

• Goal 2: GCC Green Team apprentices will develop skills necessary to build, implement & test flood sensors, and gather data in order to understand the impact of flooding and support ways to mitigate them.

Apprentices will be able to:

• identify each physical component of the sensor and its purpose

• build the sensors 

  • carry out basic engineering techniques, including soldering and drilling

  • apply best practices related to those techniques

  • integrate safety measures when assembling sensor parts

• determine the optimal locations for mounting the sensors based on environmental criteria

• install sensors based on the selected location and conditions

• configure sensors' software settings for data collection and optimal energy consumption

• extract Floodsense data and produce a report for analysis

• identify sources of "noise" that may influence the accuracy of the flood data

• recognize critical data points to determine when tides have risen

• make a presentation (using any media) using the Floodsense data to propose a solution to a local flooding problem, and share the solution with the local community