Children's Role in Environmental Justice Research: A Case Study on Storyboarding & Mapping, Papers of Health sciences

Download Children's Role in Environmental Justice Research: A Case Study on Storyboarding & Mapping and more Papers Health sciences in PDF only on Docsity! Participatory Research with Children for Environmental Justice in East Austin Mariana Montoya Suzanne Russo Final Paper: Applied GIS, Spring 2007 Dr. Bjorn Sletto 2 Introduction During spring semester 2007, students from the class, CRP 386: Applied Geographic Information Systems at the University of Texas and PODER (People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources) began a project to assess whether children in East Austin are exposed to environmental hazards on their way to school. It quickly became apparent that environmental hazards surround the school, so UT students sought to collect information on children’s perceptions of these hazards. The primary methods for collecting this information were two participatory research approaches: storyboarding exercises and community mapping workshops. UT students together with teachers at Zavala Elementary and members of PODER planned the methodology to gather data with children. This paper provides an analysis of our experience with community engagement and outreach, focusing on the participatory research methods of storyboarding and community mapping workshops. We take a critical perspective to examine the value of participatory research with children, and we relate the development of the research methodology, its implementation, and the findings to the success of the project. Throughout the semester, the class addressed a series of re-occurring challenges including the ethics of representing children’s voices, prioritization of education or data collection, logistics of working with children of various ages, and coordination of multiple community partners. A discussion of these challenges and a crucial analysis of lessons learned will also be presented in this paper. 5 collaborated with UT students and PODER interns to map environmental hazards, called Points of Interest, within a specified grid and collected sensory information on each Point of Interest. Our class spent several weeks creating and refining the methodology to collect this information from the Zavala students. UT students developed the storyboarding activity based on literature reviews, discussions in the classroom, and conversations with PODER and teachers from Zavala Elementary. Insights from Zavala 5th Grade teacher, Mr. Guillermo Barrera, were critical in developing an appropriate methodology. He also assisted in developing the forms used for this activity, encouraged other teachers to participate, and explained the project in depth to his students. Two storyboarding activities were held on March 1st and March 21st with 5th and 6th grades of Zavala Elementary. Members of PODER led both events and presented the main goals of the project, the importance of children's perceptions for their work, and the most significant environmental hazards in the neighborhood. A community mapping workshop followed each storyboarding activity, with workshops held on March 4th and March 24th. During the first storyboarding event, UT students, Mr. Barrera and the 6th grade teacher Mr. Gabriel Estrada instructed 5th and 6th graders respectively to draw “places they like” and places they “do not like.” UT students also provided all the children with individual large-scale maps 6 of the neighborhood and instructed them to draw their routes from home to school. Zavala students brought these maps home and returned them to the teacher the next day (Fig. 1). Fig. 1 For the second storyboarding, with 6th-graders alone, Mr. Estrada, suggested a change in the methodology. Instead of completing storyboards, the children drew a mental map of their route from school to home. They were also encouraged to mark the “places they liked” or places they “did not like” on their maps. This approach seemed more appropriate because of the age of the students. 7 The workshops began with a registration table where students turned in their permission forms and provided their address. The area around Zavala was divided into grids of eight to ten blocks. Students were placed within the grid that is closest to or encompasses their home; it was assumed that students would be more interested in or have more comments about the area most familiar to them. Registration started at 9:30 and the workshop began at approximately 10am. Icebreaker games were played with the students until 10:15 or 10:30 to provide time for latecomers to arrive, and the grids to be mapped. Students were then put into teams of two to four students with at least two adults in each team. After the first workshop, debrief meetings were held with PODER and the class to get feedback on the methodology and the data collected. While the class comments related to technical aspects of data collection and challenges of working with children, comments from PODER were focused on equity in our process, consciousness of gender and race relations, and dissatisfaction with the data children provided. The debrief meetings made it apparent that we needed to provide specific roles for each person so that everyone would understand their responsibilities and to ensure that each participant had a meaningful opportunity to contribute. The roles we established were workshop coordinator, walking team leader, walking team support, and process documenter. 1 0 environmental hazards, and required his students to attend the Saturday workshop. Mr. Estrada was our other primary contact at Zavala. Mr. Estrada allowed us to work with his class to collect mental maps of the neighborhood, discuss environmental hazards, and one of his students attended our second workshop. The support of these teachers granted us easy access to a group of young people knowledgeable about the area around Zavala. The second factor was our success in creating a research methodology that the children could understand and respond to. This meant wording our questions and providing a form for collecting the children’s perceptions in terminology they would understand. With Mr. Barrera’s help we chose a set of five senses, and a gradient of fifth- grade appropriate terminology that workshop participants could use to individually rate their perceptions of each Point of Interest (Fig. 2). Fig. 2 He also assisted us in developing a form that children used to evaluate the quality and safety of the block as a whole, which each group of children completed as a team. It was important that we maintained an age-appropriate approach to the entire workshop, including games at the 1 1 beginning of the event, an attitude of fun throughout, suitable language on the data collection forms, and a proper length of time spent in the field with the children. We learned in the second workshop that even one year’s grade difference can change whether our forms and our questions are age appropriate. It is also important to recognize that within elementary school cohorts, mental maturity and scientific sophistication can vary greatly as well. PODER measured success differently than our class. One, important measure of our own success was whether our community partner was happy with the workshops. To achieve this, we needed to keep our priorities and goals aligned with PODER’s priorities and goals. This meant constantly balancing the need for data gathering and professional, scientific approaches with the goals of community outreach and education. Even though we frequently evaluated our approach and critiqued our methodologies to accommodate PODER’s goals and interests, tensions arose between our responsibility to develop a scientifically rigorous research project and PODER’s responsibility to gather persuasive information about hazards to children in East Austin. Challenges Though designing our methodology was the most time-consuming aspect of the workshops, gaining the support of teachers turned out to be the biggest challenge. We learned that without the engagement of teachers, we had very little chance at gaining interest and 1 2 participation from their students. Mr. Barrera’s involvement helped us create forms appropriate for his fifth grade class and get a high student turnout for the first workshop. When we held a second workshop for the sixth grade, only one Zavala student participated. The UT students who helped him map out his Points of Interest quickly realized that the forms and approach geared towards fifth-graders were too basic for this sixth-grade student. Engagement of parents in this project was also challenging. We originally anticipated that parents would accompany their children on the mapping walks, providing us with an opportunity to capture parents’ perspectives as well. However, only parent attended either of the workshops. Though we ultimately were proud of the research materials, data management, and maps we created, our results did not meet PODER’s expectations. Therefore, the products we developed based upon our data have limited use for PODER. Community-university partnerships are necessary in this age where universities have deep impacts on the communities surrounding them. The array of resources available to universities puts upon them a moral obligation to work in the surrounding communities. These partnerships can offer students invaluable experience to develop the kind of ‘think-on-your-feet’ skills necessary for success in the real world, and an opportunity to put their class lessons into context. They offer community organizations manpower, technical, and financial resources that otherwise 1 5 Conclusion Overall, the university students, Zavala participants, PODER, and our primary Zavala partners considered the research project a success. Through these two workshops and the storyboarding activities we collected valuable data on children’s perceptions of their environment, developed a methodology that can be replicated in future years, established partnerships with parents and teachers, and produced a clear plan for improving participation and data collection in the future. Continuation of this project will allow for improvements to the participatory research methodology, build stronger relationships between the university and the community partners, and develop data and research capacity that can help community activists and city planners rid East Austin of environmental hazards that are endangering school children. 1 6 References Chao, Khan and Sokny Long. (Winter 2004) Youth Participation in Research. Special issue of Race, Poverty and the Environment. Goldwasser, Matthew. 2004. A Guide to Facilitating Action Research for Youth. Philadelphia: Research for Action; www.researchforaction.org Lake, V. (2003). “Children's Stories of Hope: Moving toward and expanded understanding of the World children live in”. Early Child Development and Care 173(5): 509-518. Skivenes, M. and A. Strandbu (2006). “A Child Perspective and Children’s Participation” Children, Youth and Environments 16(2): 10-27. Varney, D. and W. Vliet (2005). “Local Environmental Initiatives Oriented to Children and Youth: A Review of UN-Habitat Best Practices” Children, Youth and Environments 15(2): 41-52