Email interview with Joanne Zhao, Youth Stewardship Manager

A continued email conversation with Joanne will help us understand how the building or deployment of flood sensors would be integrated into the Green Team internship schedule, how the program is currently structured and the extent of the students' prior knowledge. 

Reviewing apprenticeship application materials

The Green Team Apprentice Application (2020 GGTA) gives us an understanding of what the GCC considers the Green Team internship to be about, what Green Team interns do during their internship, what the qualifications of Green Team interns are, and how much time interns spend at their internship. We can use this information to get an idea of what the Green Team internship will probably be like in the near future.

The GCC considered the 2020 Green Team internship to primarily be a “green jobs training program” that also introduces students to environmental stewardship (this is one major thing the FloodSense Team wants students to walk away with) and “maintenance, green infrastructure, and urban conservation” (GGTA, 2020).  Time will be split between outdoor work and classroom sessions (GGTA, 2020).  Intern candidates preferably low-income youth of color, Gowanus and NYCHA residents preferred, who are interested in “environmental work and careers” (GGTA, 2020).  This document also gives specifics on when students intern, and for how long.

Interview with NYU FloodSense Team Researchers

Our team conducted a 32 minute long Zoom interview with the NYU FloodSense Team on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.  We interviewed 6 people: Researchers Andrea Silverman, Elizabeth Hénaff, Tega Brain, Lydia Jessup, Charlie Mydlarz, and Praneeth sai venkat Challagonda.  The purpose of this interview was to determine the NYU Floodsense Team’s involvement in the Green Team program. The questions our team focused on during the interview were 

1) How the FloodSense Team wanted Green Team interns to interact with their sensors

2) What the FloodSense Team wanted students to learn from interacting with their sensors

3) Who the flood data is intended for

4) The FloodSense Team’s familiarity with the GCC 

Notes from the interview can be found here.

Reviewing NYU Floodsense Team's research documentation 

The NYU FloodSense Team’s documentation describes how to build and deploy FloodSense Sensors and also how to use the FloodSense Sensors’ software.  Key items discussed include:

• FloodSense Sensors can be built with materials that are readily available in NYC (Challagonda, 2021).

• Assembling the sensors requires that wires in the sensors are soldered (Challagonda, 2021).  Assembly also requires the use of a drill to create holes in the sensors’ housing (Challagonda, 2021).  

• Sensors should be mounted at least 7 ft off the ground when they are mounted on traffic signs; the FloodSense Team has permission from the NYC DOT to mount sensors on traffic signs (Challagonda, 2021).  

• The Arduino IDE would be uploaded to the microcontroller in the sensor (Challagonda, 2021).  The FloodSense Sensor Library for the Arduino IDE contains all the files required to work the sensors (Challagonda, 2021) (Challagonda, 2021).  Parameters “Duty Cycle” and “Ultrasonic Sensing Modes” can be changed during the sensor runtime (Challagonda, 2021).

Reviewing FloodSense Team's Grant Proposal

This grant describes the FloodSense Team’s rationale for deploying their flood sensors.  The rationale is to install the sensors so the sensors can ultimately provide real-time flood information to a publicly accessible platform to inform a wide range of stakeholders; these stakeholders would include policy makers, government agencies, citizens, emergency response teams, advocacy groups, and researchers. Key information gathered from the grant include: 

• • Flood information would be about frequent floods local to the Gowanus community, as information about these floods is not tracked by state or federal governments (FloodSense Team, 2019, pp. 3-4).  

  • Gowanus residents having access to real-time flood data would let them avoid flooded areas, which are likely to contain flood water with disease causing pathogens, and chemicals toxic to humans (FloodSense Team, 2019, pp. 4-5).  

  • Sensor deployment will happen with advisory from GCC and Gowanus by Design (Gbd) (FloodSense Team, 2019, p.13).  

  • Sensor deployment effectiveness will be evaluated according to the conditions set by Task 1, which is described beginning on page 10 (FloodSense Team, 2019, p.13).   

  • If sensors are deployed when COVID-19 social distancing restrictions are still in effect, sensors will only be mounted on “surface-mounted options” (FloodSense Team, 2019, p.14).  

  • Principal Investigators (PIs) will work with the NYC Mayor’s Office to “develop and transfer sensor technology for use in other contexts around NYC” (FloodSense Team, 2019, p.17).  “PIs [listed on page 21, who are some of the NYU FloodSense researchers] will be responsible for training and mentorship of the postdoctoral scholar and graduate student researcher working on the project” (FloodSense Team, 2019, p.19).  

To get a better understanding of what the GCC wants out of the Green Team internship, we did some online research and found the following source:

• “Gowanus Canal Conservancy unveils renderings for SCAPE-designed Gowanus Lowlands”

This news article notes that the Gowanus Green Team is one part of the GCC’s Gowanus Lowlands vision, which seeks to redevelop some of the Gowanus area into parklands that would have significant green infrastructure (Cohen, 2017). 

• Part of the Lowlands vision calls for ensuring that the Gowanus community has a significant impact on shaping the future of the Gowanus Watershed, and that the Gowanus community is involved in the Lowlands vision (Cohen, 2017).  The Gowanus Green Team program seems to be one way of informing the community so they can have an impact on the watershed, as one desired impact that GCC hopes that the Gowan’s Green Team program has is that it helps interns inform community members about the status of the Gowanus

Cohen, M. (2017, June 19). Gowanus Canal Conservancy unveils renderings for SCAPE-designed Gowanus Lowlands. Retrieved March 02, 2021, from https://www.6sqft.com/conservancy-launches-gowanus-lowlands-a-blueprint-for-nycs-next-great-park/

Silverman, A., Hénaff, E., Brain, T., Jessup, L., Mydlarz, C., & Challagonda, P. (2021). Flood meeting [Interview by M. New & M. Seaton]. Retrieved 2021.

Challagonda, P. (2021). Floodsense/floodsense_sensor. Retrieved March 02, 2021, from https://github.com/floodsense/floodsense_sensor#necessary-software

Gowanus Canal Conservancy. (2020). GOWANUS GREEN TEAM APPRENTICE (Seasonal) : May - August 2020 [Green Team Internship Application].

FloodSense Team. (2019). Research Project Description.

Flood Investigations at NYU - Urban Flooding Group.

Street-level Flooding Platform: Sensing and Data Sharing for Urban Accessibility and Resilience - C2 Smart Engineering.

• The partnership between the GCC and NYU FloodSense team is intended to increase NYU's community involvement while shaping and benefitting the future of the Gowanus community. The flood sensor data would help to increase the Gowanus community's involvement by giving them data that they can use to inform their decisions on future changes to the Gowanus and policymakers (Silverman et. Al). The GCC benefits by using the aggregated data and determining if it is beneficial in helping residents avoid flooded areas and prevent future floods (Silverman et. Al). 

• Both organizations hope for a stronger sense of community involvement and assume that the first-hand experience with flooding will empower the data (Silverman et. Al). 

• FloodSense Researchers hope to get students involved in environmental stewardship, to get them to understand the nuances of flood sensors, and to get them exposed to STEM earlier to possibly prime them for STEM careers (Silverman et. Al). 

What topics are the students interested in learning about through the program?

• "The requirement [for the Green Team internship] is simply a youth who wants experience or exposure to the environmental field." - Joanne Zhao, Youth Stewardship Manager

• The GCC considered the 2020 Green Team internship to primarily be a “green jobs training program” that also introduces students to environmental stewardship (this is one major thing the Floodsense Team wants students to walk away with) and “maintenance, green infrastructure, and urban conservation” (GGTA, 2020).  Time will be split between outdoor work and classroom sessions (GGTA, 2020).  Intern candidates preferably low-income youth of color, Gowanus and NYCHA residents preferred, who are interested in “environmental work and careers” (GGTA, 2020). 

What prerequisite skills are required to build and operate the sensors?

• Assembling the sensors requires that wires in the sensors are soldered (Challagonda, 2021).  Assembly also requires the use of a drill to create holes in the sensors’ housing (Challagonda, 2021).  There is not a high-barrier to entry in order to build the sensors, other than knowledge of how to operate tools. 

• Additionally, the sensor software requires foundational data literacy skills and an understanding of the variable being measured: the depth of the laser's sensor and the length of time the sensor is operating. 

• Sensors should be mounted at least 7 ft off the ground when they are mounted on traffic signs; the FloodSense Team has permission from the NYC DOT to mount sensors on traffic signs (Challagonda, 2021).  

• The application of the flood sensors can be relatively broad; whether apprentices build flood sensors, install them or analyze data is negotiable and depends on the students' interest. 

How are the students directly impacted by the urban flooding?

• Students may come from the Gowanus area, so they may have had first-hand experience with the flooding adversely impacting their everyday lives (e.g. the flooding making them constantly reroute the paths they take to school, students becoming sick due to unintentional contact with flood water). 

• The program "prioritizes low-income students in the Gowanus neighborhood with a focus on NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] youth." - Joanne Zhao, Youth Stewardship Manager.

What will be the students' community impact by participating in the program?

• The community impact would be students being able to provide the Gowanus community with flood information that would help with making commutes and daily life easier, provide documented proof for community members' flooding claims, and help to inform community members' decisions about the future of Gowanus.

• Flood information would be about frequent floods local to the Gowanus community, as information about these floods is not tracked by state or federal governments (FloodSense Team, 2019, pp. 3-4).  Gowanus residents having access to real-time flood data that would let them avoid flooded areas, which are likely to contain flood water with disease causing pathogens and chemicals toxic to humans in them (FloodSense Team, 2019, pp. 4-5). 

Gowanus residents having access to real-time flood data would help them avoid flooded areas, which are likely to contain flood water with disease causing pathogens and chemicals toxic to humans. The Gowanus community would have flood data that they can bring to governmental agencies that can take substantive action on flooding.

What is the impact of the flooding on the Gowanus community currently?

The sporadic flooding (that is not being documented in real-time) causes traffic issues (e.g. cars can't travel through flooded areas) and floods sidewalks, making it harder for Gowanus community members to commute or go about their daily lives.

Who will be using the data? NYU Researchers? Apprentices? The GCC? And how?

The data would be used by NYU researchers to create a dashboard that updates Gowanus community members about floods in real time, and can be used by policy makers, non-profits (such as the GCC) and other entities to inform their decision making .  The community and NYU researchers may use the data to make community art to inform the general public about hyperlocal flooding.  Apprentices can use the data as a way to share their experience with their internship, and as a way to educate community members.  The data may also be used by various governmental agencies as input.

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