We invite you to explore this treasure trove and share it with your community!
Here are some of the creative educational media and other resources we’ve made for you. These are meant to teach our communities about noise pollution, sound, and how to practice engaged, collaborative, and equitable scientific research.
Noise Refuge and Wellness Booklet
This booklet was created by CLUES Community Science Collaborators (CSCs): Alma Sanchez, Christina Neubauer, Lizeth Pineda Roldan, and Tania Acevedo Garcia. The goal of this project is to raise awareness and teach our Latinx community and other marginalized communities about noise pollution as we ourselves continue to learn more. One of our main objectives is to understand how noise pollution affects our communities, our ecosystems, and our individual health. By understanding more about noise pollution, we will be able to create change where noise continues to be disproportionately concentrated and harmful.
Download here: Noise Refuge and Wellness Booklet
Equitable Decision-Making Tool
The decision-making tool is a way for us to hear all voices and document them. The tool allows for everyone to vote on an issue. This is to both honor our Agreements and intentions in supporting each other’s voice while we also acknowledge we have deadlines to tend to, and decisions that need to be clearly made and recorded. This tool, designed by the ICBOs, supports our documentation of the process as part of our agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF). Thus, the intent here is not to impose some rigid structure on our decision-making, but to add clarity and support to our process centering equity.
We can only move forward if no one selects the: “I am against it and cannot proceed” option. We are calling this the VETO vote. If there is a veto then we MUST meet to discuss the issues. Once we have this meeting, we will take another vote and this time only require 2/3 majority. In this way – we document all concerns and ensure that even though we are moving forward – everyone has an opportunity to be heard.
Noise lessons and Wellness tool kits:
Download and enjoy this set of educational activities by CLUES’ Community Science Collaborators!
Here is the Wellness toolkit!
Participate in our community survey on noise pollution.
Better yet, share this survey with your friends and family so that we can expand our citizen science community while we learn more about noise pollution and how it affects us all.
Our Working Agreements
In our process section, we share our working agreements. These are based on the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing, and they are an expression of our fundamental commitment to working in a collaborative, fully inclusive, just, open, and respectful way. To view them, visit: https://noiseproject.org/process/
The PhotoVoice project aims to foster discussion of noise pollution, increase understanding of its effects, and gather community perspectives.
In Print
Because we think science and learning are fun, we created this clever flyer to explain what the NOISE Project is all about.
Here are the front and back panels…
…And here are the inside panels.
In addition to explaining what the NOISE Project is researching, you’ll learn why and how we are doing this work differently from the way most science research is conducted.
Another creative way to learn about the NOISE Project is through this poster.
During a Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) event in February 2019, we showcased the poster and shared our work with other event participants.
Online
Community researchers found that many community organizations will put up with collaborations and partnerships that are untrustworthy, inequitable, frustrating, and lack transparency in order to obtain funds and opportunities that they feel can be channeled directly to their communities.
This is what we call the Robin Hood Approach.
Our research also indicates that science institutions will often send representatives to key planning and negotiation meetings who lack experience in the community, authority within the institution, and decision making-power.
Who is the Third Best Man, and why should you care?
Community Perspectives on Noise Pollution is a three-minute video that we produced and presented at the National Science Foundation’s 2019 STEM for All Video Showcase.
Here we tell you, in our own words, why we chose a community-led approach to scientific research.
And…our video won a Public Choice award in the 2018 STEM for All Video Showcase!
Take a look: Community Perspectives: Transforming Science to Benefit All
We have our own Community Perspectives YouTube Channel!
This is a great place to meet our team and learn what each of our community partners are up to.
We also have a NOISE Project Community Perspectives blog. This is the cyber equivalent of an open floor plan office space—we just lay it all out for you to see! Keep in mind that we are being transparent with our process here…which means that the blog is always “under construction.”
What’s that Racket?
Some of the noise we’re making here at the NOISE Project is about our steadfast commitment to making sure that community voices are being heard. Here are some resources that may make you think a little differently about what science and research are, and how you can participate.
If you’re looking to form Meaningful Collaborations and Partnerships for Impact, these workbooks are for you!
Meaningful Collaborations addresses the question: “How can we navigate partnerships with science institutions to better implement informal science education projects in underserved communities?”
Partnerships for Impact was developed for informal science educators and outreach specialists working with diverse communities who want to learn how to partner more effectively.
Check out this wonderful stop-motion video created by Engaged Cornell student Isabella Armas-León. It describes Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology (CLO) research focused on inequitable collaborations between community-based organizations and science institutions.
Actors: Karen Purcell (CLO Project Leader) and José Miguel Hernández, actor and artistic director of La Joven Guardia del Teatro Latino.
Makeda Cheatom and Bobby Wilson talk about the importance of equity and inclusion in the sciences at a PBS Nature meeting at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in November 2018.
This video was produced by Engaged Cornell student Isabella Armas-León.
In the fall of 2017, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Karen Purcell and MAUF’s Bobby Wilson shared preliminary results of research exploring issues that affect collaborations between ICBOs (Independent Community-Based Organizations) and informal science institutions.
This research, shared at the American Community Gardening Association Conference, and its findings, are part of the ideas that form the foundation of the NOISE Project.
Wait! There’s more!
Each of our NOISE Project community-based organizations has generously shared a wide range of resources for you, too! Check them out for yourself!