PUBLIC LABORATORY FOR OPEN TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE INC

Public Lab programming focuses on the research, development, and refinement of open source hardware and software tools and methods that help people share data about community environmental health. Our goal is to increase the ability of underserved communities to identify, redress, remediate, and create awareness and accountability around environmental concerns. The non-profit organization at the heart of the Public Lab community achieves this by providing online and offline training, education and support, and by focusing on locally relevant outcomes that emphasize human capacity and understanding.

Volunteer researchers work collaboratively to design, refine, and implement inexpensive, open source tools to monitor environmental health issues where they live. They are hacking affordable, off the shelf technology to create easy-to-use environmental monitoring tools, then take them to the lakes and streets that matter to them to track air and water quality, collect evidence about pollution, and share expertise. The data produced is designed to function as civic information that is visually accessible and distributable in standard formats so that residents can use it to inform community decision-making.

Community & Outreach
-new partners, sites
-events, workshops
-ongoing relationships
-co-authoring & culture of documentation
-education & curricular work

Research
-new tools, prototyping
-defining needs with place-based communities
-field testing and collaboration
-iterative process refinement - based on evaluation

Open Data
-archiving
-diverse formats - kml, geotiff, tms
-data uptake by research, policy, legal, local communities

Evaluation
-quantification, gathering/assessment
-interpretation/analysis, publication
-participatory approaches, co-authoring
-self-criticism, improvement

Sustainability
-fundraising
-legal
-kit & print sales

In the three years since our founding, Public Lab has grown from a mailing list of 200 “grassroots mappers” to a community of 9,000 community researchers, supported by a robust web presence, local research hubs, and a team of nine nonprofit staff members. We have built an innovative space where activists, educators, technologists and researchers share their expertise in science, technology, community organizing, activism, and social science, and learn reciprocally from one another. Public Lab is reframing the way people imagine and participate in science.