Improving Methods of Participatory Soil Science through Interdisciplinary and International Collaboration

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

Polluted soil threatens the environment and human health in communities worldwide, yet soil contamination has not been the focus of many public health interventions, and people who encounter heavy metals in soil are rarely aware of their presence or the harms they can cause. This project responds to this problem with a "citizen science" approach to studying soil, focusing on urban soil. Citizen science involves the public in scientific research; in this case, testing soil for heavy metal contaminants, exploring the sources of contamination, and envisioning strategies for protecting public health. A shortcoming of many citizen science projects is that they attempt to reproduce narrow disciplinary approaches to a research topic, rather than grappling with the multifaceted ways that people interact with their environments. In contrast, this project assembles a multidisciplinary team, including sociologists, a chemical engineer, an environmental scientist, a geographer, and an artist, to create a Community Soil Study Toolkit that guides citizen scientists to study soil contamination from multiple perspectives that are relevant to their lives. In addition to the environmental knowledge yielded by creating and implementing this Toolkit, this project provides a unique case study of collaborative citizen science to address complex socio-environmental problems. The research therefore helps to answer a central question in science and technology studies (STS): what kinds of practices are effective for bringing attention to society and culture into scientific work? The research includes three interrelated tasks. The first task is a sociological analysis of the soil testing field, including in-depth interviews with about 20 people engaged in community-based soil research and extensive analysis of relevant documents, to understand the social and material obstacles to widespread soil testing. These interviews and documents provide necessary technical and social context for the citizen science project, while also illuminating how technologies, standards, policies, materials, cultural perceptions, political conflicts, disciplinary pressures, and economic forces create conditions of "undone" soil science. The second task is the design and diffusion of a Community Soil Study Toolkit, including do-it-yourself (DIY) arsenic and lead test kits. Creating the Toolkit includes laboratory work and participatory design, continually documenting and addressing the tensions that arise between technical and social questions, across different scales, and in terms of credibility for different audiences. The third task is to carry out participatory studies of soil contamination with community-based collaborators, using the Community Soil Study Toolkit and revising it as necessary. The process and outcomes are compared across contexts using in-depth interviews with citizen science participants and detailed ethnographic field notes. The participation of the public in this project serves to communicate the hazards associated with heavy metals, support local efforts to raise concerns about contaminated environments, and bring university researchers and the public together to create social and scientific knowledge. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.