South Boston Environmental Empowerment Project: Using Google Earth as a model for interactive Community Based Participatory Research

Urban environmental health research reveals disparities in levels of air and water pollution, availability of fresh, healthy food, housing stability, smoking advertisements, and safe play spaces across different neighborhoods. Community based participatory research allows full partnership and equal involvement of researchers and community members to better understand factors that impact community health and environmental injustices. The South Boston Environmental Empowerment Project (SoBEEP) was a collaboration between a community health center and local non-profits to engage youth to learn and do research about environmental health in their neighborhood. SoBEEP sought to : 1) focus on empowerment and leadership through a twelve session environmental justice curriculum, equipping youth with the tools to advocate for change and 2) develop the teens' skills as educators and investigators, using Google Earth to create a visual representation of their chosen research efforts. They decided to study the distribution of cigarette butts on the streets and sidewalks as a proxy for tobacco use and lack of proper cigarette disposal canisters in South Boston. Several important lessons were learned. South Boston has a rich history of environmental advocacy and currently faces new environmental health challenges. Youth were excited and interested to learn about environmental justice and its' impact on their community. SoBEEP participants learned to form research questions, perform data collection/analysis, and represent data visually using Google Earth. Mapping data with Google Earth allowed those most involved in research collection to play a role in presentation and advocacy with an immediacy that is often lacking in academic research.