NSF Awards: 1811234
It is our belief that science is better when community wisdom and voices co-lead at every step of the research process. This video will highlight the journey of our community science project, The NOISE Project, how it has carried out science within an equitable framework, led by diverse voices from communities historically excluded from the sciences. Our project processes speak to the priorities, challenges, barriers, and opportunities for equitable collaborations between science institutions and community organizations, and honors different ways of knowing on research and analysis. Community coding and analysis are central to our equitable process making space to enrich science with visual representations to explore theories and delve into analysis.
Our video presents our project’s journey: the benefit of co-designing science projects that are community-led using community-based participatory action research and co-creating intentional processes that center Race, Equity and Inclusion, and foster Trust and Transparency taking into consideration the Realities and Relevance and naming Power and Privilege. We share some of the findings from our research that illustrate the importance of intentional, transparent, processes in research collaborations and explore key terms like co-creation, equity, privilege, right to comfort, and the myth of color-blind objectivity in science. We advocate for community leadership in ALL aspects of community science, including research, programming, dissemination, and evaluation.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bilingual Community Outreach Specialist
Thank you for watching our video! We share some of the results from our journey as we documented the equitable co-creation of a continental community science project to benefit our communities. What happens when communities co-lead a science project side by side with informal science institutions?
Our research and experience led us to understand that the co-creation of equitable processes in collaborations and scientific research focused on communities historically excluded from the sciences is critically important.
The NOISE project presented a unique opportunity for community engagement in science because of the Independent Community-Based Organizations’ (ICBOs) commitment to authentically and explicitly address issues of Race, Equity and Inclusion that impact science projects collaborations.
We invite you to visit https://noiseproject.org/ to learn more about our Community Science Project focused on noise pollution, download our Noise Project App, and continue to learn more about equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion in scientific research.
Our manuscript “Understanding the Impact of Equitable Collaborations between Science Institutions and Community-Based Organizations: Improving Science through Community-Led Research” is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac001
Our paper “The Importance of Funding Communities Directly” is available at https://www.informalscience.org/importance-funding-communities-directly
Billy Spitzer
Brooke Coley
Hi Marilu,
Very powerful presentation.
WE are at Arizona State University and our lab focuses on the unique experiences of Black students in academia. I am curious to know more about the participatory research methods that you embraced.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bilingual Community Outreach Specialist
Hi Brooke,
Thank you for watching our presentation. We practice participatory research through intentionally creating processes that ensure community leadership at every step of the project. First we co-created a set of Working agreements, then the Community Review Board Agreement of Non-Negotiables to guide research and evaluation in our communities. We believe that these key agreements will guide us in practicing equitable, inclusive research that ultimately benefits our communities. These agreements guide our work— like the Institutional Review Boards at universities and research institutions—but from the community perspective. It also honors our community expertise. We also created a process and identified criteria and non-negotiables for selecting an external evaluator. The next step was to develop decision-making processes focused on achieving consensus within and among communities and the CLO. We share information with the group, come up with and discuss ideas, consider the group's concerns and interests, allow time to clarify and make priorities, and bring it to a scaled anonymous survey where all can vote. The system was co-created with the group members. We share more details about our methodology in our paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac001
Thanks again!
Brian Drayton
Co-Director
This is a rich presentation, and it is all the richer for the papers you suggest in this welcoming message. I found the discussion of the IRB process in your BioScience paper particularly interesting.
I have two questions that arose as I was watching and reading. First, you don't mention "intergenerational" aspects of the community (including school-aged kids and their teachers), but I'll bet that your project includes them. Can you say a bit more?
Second, the example of the researcher interested in teaching biodiversity but not connected to the community they want to work with -- What if I (as a scientist or a researcher) am following an issue that I believe is crucial to a community, but the community is not widely aware of the issue as it affects them ? Have you had experience of such a person/group from outside the community seeking to build awareness about an issue, and then a community process emerging to address it?
Billy Spitzer
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bilingual Community Outreach Specialist
Hi Brian,
Thank you for your kind comments.
Yes this is an intergenerational community-led science project. Each community is different and the majority works with families as a whole.
It’s our experience that communities seldom don’t know about a crucial issue that affects them, and that researchers believe only they know about. It’s important for researchers to be humble, open, and not to fall back on the “Savior Syndrome”. Equitable exchange of expertise always works better in our experience.
We actually have seen the opposite where researchers outside the community come with an idea of an issue to build awareness that falls short.
Thanks again!
Billy Spitzer
Executive Director
Marilu,
Thank you for sharing about this really thoughtful project. It sounds like a really rich and complex project. I was curious to learn more about how you were able to bring together such a large diversity of community partners, and how you were able to negotiate a project to work on and bring together the expertise you needed to carry it out.
It was impressive to hear that this collaboration has been going on for 8 years. I was wondering if you have thoughts about what has contributed to the longevity of this collaboration, and whether/how you have experienced any turnover of individuals while maintaining the group?
Thanks,
Billy
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Makeda Cheatom
Executive Director
Greetings Billy,
I am a community co-pi and have been a part of the collaboration for 8 years. At first, it was difficult because of the diversity of personalities. Everyone was from different communities with different experiences with dominant culture institutions. Our research showed us that relationships are authentic when partnerships begin with trust and transparency. As the years went by we all grew and in difficulties, we were committed to putting our egos on the back burner because we had a common goal for the communities that we serve. Our research on the importance of JEDI in institution was ahead of its time 8 years ago. Institutions were just beginning to talk about EDI, now everyone is making the adjustments to show their commitment to EDI.
Most of the community based partners are still a part of this project even with our careers or organizations changing and I think this shows the type of commitment that we have. There are a few fairly new members and we always make sure that they feel welcomed and informed. For the first language speakers, we make sure that there are translations when necessary.
Another reason why I think we're all still a part of this research is that the research has been led by us, the community. It's a rare opportunity to have access to resources and the privilege to lead research projects, set our non-negotiables and question the institutions when transparency is needed.
It's really been an honor to work with my colleaugue ICBOs (Independent Community Based Organizations), PIs and advisors and I am grateful for their commitment to the project.
Billy Spitzer
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Kim Pearson
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bilingual Community Outreach Specialist
Thanks, Billy,
Projects fail when institutions pull in projects like this together in a top-down kind of way. Our project grew from the ground-up in resistance to institutional inequity. Using grounded theory approaches, and Community-based Participatory Action Research we built intentional processes that center Equity and Inclusion to benefit our communities.
If the process is good, communities will support it. Equitable co-created processes attract communities where ownership is genuine. Processes need to be bottom-up. Our group is diverse, yet they have a clear mission to benefit each of the communities.
Below, I share a guide co-created by the ICBO’s that might help understand how to bring together long-lasting community-led projects like this one:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1siAvFwP4ddDy3SmVuxTVgWj7WSZvRRCE/view
Thanks again!
Billy Spitzer
Kim Pearson
Beatriz Canas
Director of equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility
Marilu,
Thank you for sharing information about your framework and project. I enjoyed reading the articles, specifically about community coding and looking through the information on the website. I appreciate the information provided about the community coding challenges and how the team navigated power dynamics. I'm curious to know in your opinion what was the most positive outcome from the community coding process? Also will the Noise Pollution project also gather data on how noise pollution impacts wildlife in addition to the adverse health outcomes for communities?
Phyllis Turner
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Mateo Luna Castelli
Hi Beatriz,
I was a member of the community-coding team as part of the NOISE project and really appreciate your question around the positive outcomes of our coding work! I agree with the comments Marilú brought forward about the value of having diverse perspectives in the coding process. Many positive outcomes that our coding group has experienced come from our coding process itself. We like to think of these outcomes as our “process-driven results”. Through co-creating and applying a community coding process, we have been able to identify key barriers and opportunities to community-led coding. Through our coding process, we were able to witness how inequitable ownership, privilege, and realities impact our collaborative coding and how we can use transparency, consensus, and creative communication to mitigate these barriers and strengthen our group. We have seen in real time how much confidence, capacity, and trust we have gained as coders through collaborating inclusively and transparently.
Phyllis Turner
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Phyllis Turner
ICBO/L.E.S.A. Youth, Inc. Founder
Greetings, Beatriz. Thank you for your questions. I, too, was a member of the NOISE Project's community-coding team. I absolutely agree with Mateo. And, I would add, to your question about the most positive outcome from the community coding process is that, as a team, we "lived" our NOISE Working Agreements which you can find on the website (www.noiseproject.org). Being able to experience the impact of our Working Agreements added to richness and the experience of the community coding process by extending the invitation to each of us to build just relationships among ourselves. Thank you for your comments.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bilingual Community Outreach Specialist
Thanks, Beatriz! The value of Community Coding is in the opportunity to bring together diverse perspectives to fill in gaps in the coding process. Acknowledging these gaps is a vital step in confronting the Privilege and Power that is present in collaborations between community partners and science institutions. Community members bring viewpoints that Lab staff would miss otherwise and vice versa. We believe this will give us more complete codes and deeper analysis of our data that accounts for a multitude of perspectives and realities.
In regard to the second question, with the NOISE App, communities will gather data on the issues that interest and/or affect them. In our group there are communities who are measuring noise with a social and environmental justice lens, other communities are measuring noise and how it affects bird populations, other communities are focused on education about noise pollution while others are using the app to designate noise refuges to mitigate the negative effects of noise. Participants can download the data from our website: https://noiseproject.org/data-download/
Billy Spitzer
Christopher Papadopoulos
Greetings,
I am so happy to have discovered your project! I had the chance to read through several of your posted articles and resources, and plan to incorporate many of your ideas as we develop our new program in Sustainability Engineering at UPR Mayagüez.
One question that came up - In your article “The Importance of Funding Communities Directly”, you noted
“We believe CBOs should have direct access to funding streams so that money is not channeled through dominant culture STEM institutions and CBOs are able to control and build equitable projects that use community-centered approaches that benefit their communities. The infrastructure to support this model does not currently exist within the scientific enterprise, yet.”
I accept this as generally true, but I believe that NSF will support independent scholars and other organizations that might fall outside of the mainstream university research system (e.g., TERC). Could you please comment on to what extent your project was able to balance the funding to the ICBOs, perhaps through subcontracts or other mechanisms, so as to allow them a means to direct decisions and compensate the organizations?
As a side comment, I see a direct parallel with the question of how to rethink/rebalance what happens globally within the international development aid processes, so as to give more on the ground community organizations more direct funding vs only funding the big players, who are anywhere from ineffective to corrupt with how development funds are used.
Also, I am curious to know if you have interacted with any of the divisions of the ASEE that would be allies, such as the Liberal Education/Education and Society Division or the Community Engagement Division? Or also the Engineering, Social Justice and Peace Network?
Finally, allow me to share an article in which we wrote last year Community Designers: A Pilot Virtual Community Codesign Symposium in which we also attempted to properly balance the power relations within a university-community project.
Let’s continue the conversation!
Phyllis Turner
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Karen Purcell
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Our project was co-created from before the proposal was written. We intentionally thought about the structure of the project and spoke about the budget openly. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology received the funds, Community Co-PIs were subcontracts, and community advisors were paid as much as institutional/academic advisors. Yet, systemically, this model is problematic. The power still falls squarely on the institution receiving the funding and this creates a conflict of interest. We've seen this play out within our project.
Community researchers within our project are not academics/institutional scholars and they do not have the support that institutional academics have. Community-based organizations in our project do not have the administrative infrastructure required by the NSF to support these kinds of efforts and navigating the proposal/award system requires support. It sounds like none of this is new to you!
We have not interacted with ASEE or the Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace Network -- thanks for suggesting it! We will reach out. And thank you for the article!!
Yes! Let's continue the conversation.
Phyllis Turner
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bilingual Community Outreach Specialist
Thanks Karen and Christopher!
Lauren Bauman
Fantastic work! I loved the graphics in your video, and I'm excited to look into the Noise Project further. Thank you for sharing your important research.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Phyllis Turner
ICBO/L.E.S.A. Youth, Inc. Founder
Thank you, Lauren, for your enthusiastic response to the NOISE Project. The journey has been tremendous. We have faced several challenges throughout this process but the lessons learned have been invaluable. Please check out our website as well, www.noiseproject.org. We are excited to share the artistic talents of our NOISE Team members and some of the findings here. Thank you for watching and sharing.
Karen Purcell
Thanks Lauren!
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Jasmine Maldonado
Wow, interesting project. It was nice to see all of those smiling faces! Here at the NY Hall of Science we are also embarking in a new "co-creation" project with our community as part of a major initiative. A new public school PreK Center is being built on our campus and we are going to be working with the school "ecosystem" to help support their science curriculum. We are excited to be working not only with the school admin, teachers, students, and PTA, but also the families of the students in our community. We also want to reach out to local businesses and CBOs from our community to be part of this ecosystem. Just curious, how did you go about recruiting CBOs and other stakeholders into your project?
Nuria Jaumot-Pascual
Absolutely love this project! Thanks for sharing all these resources. Lots to learn.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Phyllis Turner
ICBO/L.E.S.A. Youth, Inc. Founder
Greetings, Jasmine. This sounds like an exciting project. I don't know where you are in the process, but it is important to identify the partners and stakeholders in advance of planning the project. This is where co-creation begins although other stakeholders may join the collaboration later. You have a good list already. Having conversations to get to know the extended community and other partners in education--formal and informal--is also a good place to start. Much success to you on the project and in co-creating sustainable processes to continue to build capacity.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Bobby L, Wilson
Founder/Owner
Hello, everyone! I am Bobby L. Wilson, ICBO and Co-PI on the NOISE Project. I want to thank each of you for taking the time to watch our video and to cast your vote. I believe that "Science is everywhere!" I also believe that there is a place for everyone in science which is why there is great value in community-based participatory action research that invites marginalized and underserved communities to engage in the sciences. As ICBO's, we have encouraged and welcomed the expertise of citizen scientists from the elementary school student to the senior citizen, without having to be a Ph.D., to explore the wonderful and amazing world of science that we all live in. It is up to all of us to insist on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the sciences. Thank you for your comments and for your vote of support.