Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute closed its campus for the foreseeable future in response to COVID-19. The RPI-based project team will begin working remotely and are fortunate that we will be able to continue video interviews with community-engaged soil researchers. We are reevaluating our initial project timelines, and expect to delay our initial visit to Chile (originally scheduled May 2020) and Dan’s visit to Mónica’s laboratory at the University of Arizona for continuing to develop the Community Soil Study Toolkit (originally scheduled July 2020 through December 2020). We hope that our plan to hold collaborative soil workshops in North Troy in Spring 2021 will be feasible, and are thinking through ideas of how to conduct such a workshop with physical distancing. Try to be safe!
Abby and Dan Begin Interviews with Community-engaged Soil Researchers!
Abby and Dan have started conducting video interviews with community-engaged soil researchers and practitioners throughout the U.S. who are focused on studying and addressing heavy metals like lead and arsenic in urban soils. The researchers and practitioners that we plan to interview work at the boundary of academic science, environmental regulation, and affected communities. They are working to make a difference both inside and outside of formal environmental and health policy channels, which will give us insight about the public health challenge of lead and other heavy metals in urban soils and the built environment. We expect to further our understanding of how lead and other heavy metals were dispersed into the environment, the governance and regulation of these contaminants, a variety of means to address lead in urban soils, and the barriers that have obstructed the clean up of lead contamination in soils.
Interview from Abby’s office before campus closure due to COVID-19:
