GBU  Lunch  lecture.  My  name  is  Michael  Best. I'm  Executive  Director  of the  Institute  for  Group  on  Technology, and  I'm  really  glad  to  see  you  all here  for  this  inaugural  lunch  of  the  semester. And  for  who  is  this their  first  time  being  at  an  iPad  GBU  lunch  lecture? It's  a  bunch  of  architecture  students. Who  are  students  registered  for  the  class? Yeah,  we  have  a  very  small  number this  semester,  which  is  super  weird. And  so,  encourage  folks  to  register. They  have  till  tomorrow.  It's  a  one  unit  class, and  you  get  free  lunch, and  you  come  and  hear  a  bunch  of  amazing  speakers on  Thursdays  1230-130,  basically. So  how  could  that  be  wrong? And  I  think  the  grading  is,  did  you  attend? So,  like,  how  is  that  not  a  really  good  deal? So,  we  would  happily  have  more  students  because  the  CAP, I  think,  is  another  30  or  so  students. So  spread  the  word,  really. I  think  it's  really  a  great  opportunity. For  those  who  are  new  to  IPAT, the  Institute  for  People  and  Technology, it's  one  of  the  ten  inter disciplinary  research  institutes  on  campus. I  like  to  say  we're  the  heart  and  soul of  the  Georgia  Tech  Research  Enterprise. And  one  of  the  things  we  do, looking  at  College  of  Design  students  is really  work  hard  to  try  to  bring  um, folks  from  Ivan  Allen  and  the  College  of  Design, increasingly  Scheller  in  conversation with  folks  in  computing  and  engineering. So  if  you're  interested  at  all  in that  enormous  intersection,  we're  your  IRI. You  want  to  be  your  favorite  IRI. And  you're  welcome  to  join  us. If  you  are  new  to  IPAT, or  even  if  you  aren't  new  to  IPAT, but  if  not  done  this  yet, please  go  to  iPad  dot  gotech  dot  EDU  and sign  up  in  the  Contact  us  area. You  can  sign  up  for  our  newsletter. That  newsletter  will  include weekly  announcements  for the  IPAT  GVU  Lunch  lecture  series. It'll  also  include  other  activities  we're  doing. For  instance,  this  semester  we  will have  our  interactivity  program in  conjunction  with  the  MSHCIPgram which  includes  opportunities  for  student  poster  sessions. And  a  variety  of  other  events, including  next  month,  we  will  have  a  town  hall. The  IPAT  Town  Hall  is  a  chance to  just  come  and  familiarize yourself  with  other  programs we  have  within  the  institute, including  research  infrastructure  we  have, like  maker  spaces  and  craft  labs, as  well  as  funding  opportunities, a  award  program  and other  things  that  would  be  interesting, hopefully  to  you,  whether  you're  a  student  or  faculty. Before  I  introduce  Alan, let  me  just  tease  the  lecture  series a  little  bit  more  by  giving you  a  small  foreshadowing  of  some  of the  speakers  we  have  lined up  for  the  program  this  semester. So  a  week  from  today, we're  going  to  have  Professor  Rich  De  M of  the  School  of  Cybersecurity  and  Privacy. And  the  title  of  his  talk  is  Roots  of  distrust, modern  technology  and  the  impact  of a  19th  century  voter  suppression  plan. Now,  if  you  know  rich, or  even  if  you  kind  of  can read  between  the  lines  of  that  title, it  will  be  scandalous  and  drama. And  it  will  be  really  exciting. He's  one  of  the  nation's,  I  think, most  poignant  scholars  in  the  area  of  voter  security. Focuses  a  lot  on  Georgia  and  Fulton  County. You  know,  gets  into  a  lot  of  good  trouble. So  come  hear  Rich  talk  about  the  state of  democracy  as  he  sees  it, especially  from  a  perspective  of  technology  security. That's  in  one  week. And  then  the  next  Thursday  will be  assistant  prop  named  Abiba  Behane  from  Trinity. The  following  one  is  the  Chair  of  Art  and  Design from  North  Eastern. And  then  the  next  one  is  somebody  from  GTRI. So  hopefully,  what  you  can  see  is  it's a  mix  of  folks  from  on  campus, eminent  faculty  from  other  universities, both  domestic  and  foreign  and  even  some  folks  from  GTI. And  that  is  just  the  beginning. The  final  three  lunch  lectures are  one  will  be  composed  of  our  C  grant  winners. So  those  are  faculty  who've  received  IPAT  C  grants, another  will  be  dissertation lightning  talks  being  arranged, I  think,  by  digital  media. Am  I  right  about  that?  So  folks who  are  in  the  final  stages  of  their  PhD, and  then  the  final  one  is  our  FLY  scholars. So  that's  student  awardees from  the  MSN  PhD  programs  across  campus, who  are  doing  work  that's  at the  intersections  of  people  and  technology. So  is  there  any  questions  or  issues about  the  program  just  before  I  introduce  Alan? Okay,  so  it's  really  my  distinct  pleasure to  introduce  our  speaker  today. Alan  Hyde  is  an  associate  professor of  sociology  in  the  School of  history  history  and  sociology,  HSOC. Okay.  It  changed  its  name  like  a  decade  ago, but  I'm  still  stumbling  on  that. And  he's  also,  I'm  very  pleased  to  say, the  initiative  lead  within IPAT  for  responsible  and  ethical  technologies. He's  a  quantitative  scholar whose  main  research  areas are  stratification  and  inequality, urban  sociology,  work  and  occupations, climate  and  disaster  resilience,  and  immigration. And  he's  currently  researching the  effects  of  race,  ethnicity, and  immigration  status  on  home  ownership, social  and  demographic  change  in  Clarkston,  Georgia. And  a  PI  for  the  Youth  Advocacy  for  Resilience to  Disasters  program  funded  by  the  NSF. And  I  think  we're  going  to  hear  quite  a  bit in  particular  about  that  program. It's  particularly,  I  think, germane  to  us  today  that  we're  going  to  hear  about climate  resiliency  because  it feels  like  a  spring  day  out  there  right  now, and  yet,  I  think  we're  all  getting  ready for  a  crazy  day  of  weather  tomorrow. So  without  further  ado,  it's  my  pleasure  to introduce  Thank  you,  everybody. How  is  the  mic  doing?  Can  you  y'all  hear  me  okay? Cool.  So  thank  you  for  the  introduction, and  I  appreciate  everybody  being  here. So  I'm  going  to  talk  about  some  of  our  work  on NSF  grant  called Youth  Advocacy  for  Resistance  to  Disasters, Empowering  youth  to  be  advocates  for  change. I  also  want  to  acknowledge  that  this  is  a  team. So  we  have  our  COPI, any  Lukess,  Nisha  Bushwe, doctor  Philip  Amonga  and doctor  McLain  at  the  Harambe  House, which  is  an  environmental  justice organization  in  Savannah. Um,  we  also  have  our  project  manager, Mustafa  Shabaz,  Daoud  Shibaka, who  is  at  the  Harambe  House,  as  well. Iris  T  N  here  at  Georgia  Tech, Tim  Cone,  Melton  Memdar,  Storm  Robinson, Russ  Clark,  who  is  also  here  in  the  crowd  today, Kim  Cobb,  Katie  O'Connell,  Olivia  Chapman. But  importantly,  I  also  want  to acknowledge  some  of  our  graduate  students, Milton  Yusufi  and  Michelle  Rechner,  and  Michelle  is  here. I  may  call  on  Michelle  a  little  bit  later  to  see if  she  wants  to just  answer  some  questions  that  you  may  have, as  well,  as  well  as Sarita  Smith  and  Reggie  Slater  and  Maria  Susa. So  just  a  little  bit  about  me,  I  think, actually  sometimes  because  a  lot  of  students  are  here, sometimes  it's  good  to  like, we  see  you  see  professors  and  you  think, like,  Oh,  they  had  this  plan, and  they  knew  exactly how  they  were  going  to  get  there,  and, like,  you  don't  really understand  the  context  and  complex  journey. So  just  a  little  bit  about  me. I'm  originally  from  North  Alabama, grew  up  in  a  town  called  Albertville  or  Boaz. And  I  got  into  sociology,  I  think. Originally,  I  thought  I  was  going  to  be  bio  premed. I  went  to  the  University  of  Alabama  Birmingham, planning  that. But  we  growing  up, I  did  a  lot  of  youth  mission  trips  with  my  church. And  we  took  several  trips  to  New  Orleans  often  because, well,  a  lot  of  mission  trips  go  there. New  Orleans  is  also  a  really important  cultural  capital  for  the  South. I  think  the  culture  there  is,  like,  quite  unique. And  part  of  that  began  to  a  lot  of  churches. Many  of  y'all,  if  you  went  to  different  kind  of  churches, you  often  go  to  homeless  shelters  or  you do  like  soup  kitchens  and  things  like  that. And  I  was  really  interested  in this  issue  of  poverty  and  homelessness, which  is  this  recurring  thing. And  really  wondering,  are  things like  soup  kitchens  or  some  of even  these  shelters  that  provide  very  temporary  relief? Are  they  really  addressing this  larger  issue  of homelessness,  poverty  and  inequality? Um,  I  then  went  to  the  University  of  Alabama  Birmingham, which  is  a  big  university  in  Alabama, thinking  I  was  going  to  be  pre  med, but  I  then  switched  my  major  three times  and  added  a  double  major  in  history  and  sociology. I  still  graduated  on  time,  you  know, so  if  there  are  any  undergrads here  and  you're  still  trying  to  figure  things  out, like,  just  it's  okay. We  all  kind  of  figure  out  our  journey  as  we  go. Um,  I  then  moved  up  to  Connecticut  and  got a  PhD  in  sociology  from  the  University  of  Connecticut. Connecticut  was  very  different, very  big  culture  shock. I  got  in  trouble  for  saying,  Mam. On  the  first  day  I  was  in Connecticut  to  a  woman  that  was  from, I  believe,  the  Bronx  or  maybe  Brooklyn. She  was  very  offended  that  I  said  Mam  to  her. So  there  is  some  culture  shock  and  learning  there. But  while  I  was  there,  there  was a  massive  tornado  outbreak  in  Alabama  in  the  Southeast. Does  anybody  remember  this  in  2011? There  were  over,  I  believe, 324  tornado  related  deaths  across six  states  and  24  fatalities  caused  by  thunderstorms. I  think  Alabama,  there  was  over 50  tornadoes  that  broke  out  in  one  day. This  ultimately  affected  my  hometown. So  when  I  went  back  home  after  that, it  looked  completely  different. All  the  trees  in  downtown  Albertville  had  changed,  right? So  I  wasn't  studying disasters  in  grad  school  or  even  undergrad, but  it  connects  to  some  of the  things  that  we've  experienced. And  then,  while  I  was  at, I  was  at  the  University  of  Alabama  Birmingham  2005-2009. So  does  anybody  want  to  take  a  guess  what  this  is? Hurricane  Katrina.  So  Hurricane  Katrina  hit New  Orleans  in  August right  around  the  time  that  I  started  at  UAB. As  a  freshman  in  a  dorm, we  had  to  then  in  the  middle  of  the  night, we  had  to  go  into the  hallways  and  put  books  over  our  head, like  we  were  in  middle  school. If  you're  from  the  south,  you  often learn  to  do  this  for  tornadoes. But  we  had  to  Katrina was  still  a  tropical  storm as  it  came  up  through  Birmingham. And  so,  I  love  New  Orleans. I  went  back  a  couple  of  years  later, but  this  issue  of  Katrina  and  disasters  and  how  does  it relate  to  poverty  and  inequality is  something  that  I'm  really  interested  in. And  so  when  we  think  of  disasters  in  the  Southeast, Hurricane  Katrina  often  comes  to  mind. In  2005,  Katrina  struck  the  Gulf  Coast, killing  almost  2000  people  and left  millions  displaced  in  a  path  of  destruction. You  all  know  that  story.  The  world  knows  that  story. What's  often  overlooked  is  that  the  systems  designed  to prevent  damage  often  fail  in  disasters, and  the  most  vulnerable  people  are  often  left  worse off  than  they  were  before  the  disaster  occurred. Hurricane  Katrina  left  images that  will  forever  be  etched  in  our  minds. Regardless  of  where  disasters  occur, they  disproportionately  affect black  and  brown  communities. Black  people  in  the  United  States  have the  highest  risk  for the  negative  effects  from  hurricanes, tornadoes,  heat  waves,  and  flooding, especially  in  coastal  areas. Further,  the  most  vulnerable are  often  children  and  the  elderly, and  they  often  have  difficult  recoveries  afterwards. The  aftereffects  of  disasters  like Katrina  can  be  especially  devastating  for  youth. In  a  study  in  New  Orleans  Post  Katrina, they  found  that  a  large  proportion of  youth  had  experienced trauma  or  PTSD  as  a  result  of  the  destruction, uneven  recovery,  and  displacement  of  families. And  if  we  think  of  Georgia, we  see  a  very  similar  pattern where  black  communities  are  often  most vulnerable  to  disasters  related to  climate  change  like  flooding  and  hurricanes. This  is  especially  the  case,  though. So  this  is  some  data  from some  work  that  Marshall  Shepard, as  well  as  some  other  colleagues  did on  climate  vulnerability  in  Georgia. If  you  look  at  the  bottom  right, this  is  kind  of  the  most  up  to date  kind  of  assessment  of  climate  vulnerability, but  you  can  see  that  Metro  Atlanta  and  Savannah, which  have  pretty  significant  black  populations have  some  of  the  highest  risk  for  climate  change. Now,  flash  back  to  Savannah,  Georgia  in  2016. Imagine  this  is  a  hypothetical  story, but  just  play  along  with  me. Two  kids,  Ben  and  Malika  are  outside  playing  in  the  yard, dark  clouds  appear  over  their  heads. Their  mom  yells  for  them  to  come inside  as  they  see  this  warning  on the  TV  and  hear  calls  for  everyone  to  evacuate  the  city. Their  car  was  in  the  shop  so  they  couldn't  drive  away. They  didn't  want  to  leave  their  67-year-old  neighbor, Miss  Rose,  that  was  wheelchair  bound. They  knew  the  power  would  probably  go  out  for days  if  not  weeks,  like  it  always  does. And  with  what  generator,  what  could  they  do? They  went  inside  of  their  house,  like  they  always  did, covered  the  windows  with  wood  and  hunkered  down  for  days. And  when  they  came  outside,  this  is  what  they  saw. So  this  is  actually  a  picture  from  it's  actually a  picture  from  one  of  the  suburbs of  Savannah  during  Hurricane  Matthew, and  it  actually  ended  up  being  one of  the  neighborhoods  where  Miss  Williams, one  of  the  teachers  that  worked  with  our  project, she  lives  in  this  neighborhood. And  so  they  saw  their  neighborhood  and homes  flooded  and  people  were  being  rescued  and  bost. Recovery  was  at  a  snail's  pace. After  the  cleanup  efforts  finally  reached  them, things  go  back  to  Business  uneral, meaning  infrastructure  systems  aren't  really  changed. This  is  where  our  fits  come  in. We're  not  really  trying  to  build another  disaster  preparedness  system. We're  focusing  on  the  Bens  and Malkas  and  Savannah  and  all  across  the  country. We  developed  a  middle  school  curriculum that  focuses  on  building  children, empowering  them  in  their  communities to  be  resilient  to  disasters. Building  upon  years  of  research  and  community  engagement with  the  Smart  Sea  level  sensor  project, we  developed  a  diverse  and  exciting  team with  partners  from  Georgia  Tech,  Savannah  State, the  University  of  Minnesota,  the  City  of  Savannah, the  Harambe  House,  and the  Savannah  and  Chatham  County  Public  School  System. So  why  do  we  focus  on  youth? Well,  a  couple  of  different  reasons. So  first,  we  identified  youth as  a  large  yet  vulnerable  population  on Savannah's  West  Side  communities  and developed  a  youth  advocacy program  to  address  their  needs. Parents  and  families  are  often  busy and  can  engage  in  many  activities, and  youth  are  an  important  link  to parents  and  their  family  networks, and  their  voices  can  often  inspire  change. Further,  this  program  provides important  educational  opportunities  that can  act  as  a  kind of  pre  workforce  development  in relation  to  disaster  and  emergency  preparedness. And  so  one  of  the  things  is  when  we originally  started  this  grant  back  in  2020, when  we  started  our  original  plan, we  thought  we  were  going  to  focus  on  adults, but  we  really  hear  that  there's so  many  community  engaged  efforts  these  days, especially  targeting  adults that  there's  a  lot  of  burnout. There  also  is  mistrust  of  universities. Georgia  Tech  may  not  have the  best  reputation  in  all  communities. And  so  we  decided  that youth  would  be  a  different  way  to  engage, but  also  then  reach  their  families. But  they're  also  really  an  important  kind of  they're  our  future, so  we  really  need  to  invest  in  youth. So  what  did  we  do? We  developed  yards  or youth  advocacy  for  resistance  to  disasters. It's  a  14  session  curriculum, pre  piloted  it  as  a  summer  camp  at Georgia  Tech,  Savannah  campus, and  we  did  another  pilot  at  Mercer  Middle  School, Title  one  school  in  October  and  November  of  2022. I'm  going  to  put  that  in  the  background. Essentially,  students  learn  about disaster  resilience  from  the  perspective of  environmental  justice. They  then  develop  virtual mapmaking  skills  through  Map  Spot, a  custom  mapmaking  and  engagement  tool shown  in  the  video  in  the  bottom  right. This  was  developed  by  Yani  Lukess, who  is  in  LMC  here  at Georgia  Tech  to  design green  infrastructure  solutions  to disaster  resilience  in  their  communities. They  then  learn  about  civic  engagement and  youth  advocacy  and  present their  plans  and  maps  to local  leaders  to  advocate  for  change  in  their  community. And  so  these  are  some  pictures from  our  efforts  in  Savannah. Our  curriculum  teaches  students  about disasters  and  about  the  ways  to  design  and improve  their  neighborhoods  and  communities  to  be  more resilient  with  hands  on  activities like  our  mobile  floodplain  simulator, which  illustrates  the  differences between  gray,  traditional  infrastructure, like  levees  and  also  green  infrastructure  like retention  ponds  and  parks and  their  ability  to  reduce  flooding. And  you  can  kind  of  see  the  kids  light  up as  they  engage  with  the  flood  simulator. Michelle  is  one  of  the  leaders  of,  like,  how  we  did  this. And  essentially  the  kids  develop action  plans  based  on infrastructure  solutions  to  disasters. So  they  could  think  about  green and  gray  infrastructure  solutions as  they're  kind  of  re  imagining  their  communities. Um,  students  use  Map  Spot, a  collaborative  mapmaking  tool to  help  young  people  examine  challenge  and redefine  the  stories  that  data tell  about  natural  disasters  in  their  communities. And  you  can  see  in  the  video  on  the  top  right, which  I'll  start  now, they  examine  inundation  estimates  for  flooding  and overlay  that  on  their  maps  of their  communities  that  they  have drawn  earlier  in  the  session. They  can  also  look  at  other  data  showing social  and  infrastructure  vulnerabilities  to complement  what  they  are  learning  in the  classroom  through  a  drop  down  menu. So  essentially,  students  are  this  is a  multi  kind  of  disciplinary  curriculum where  it  kind  of  makes  teachers  a  little anxious  if  they  think  about wanting  to  do  it  because  it's  so  multi  disciplinary. But  we  have  students  look  at different  data  layers  about  their  community, thinking  about  assets  and  vulnerabilities. We  try  to  emphasize  assets, but  often  kids  focus  on  the  problems. So  it's  really  a  challenge, I  think,  going  forward,  is, how  can  we  make  it  more  asset focused  and  really  get  the  kids  to  focus  on  assets? So  the  goal  is  then  to use  that  data  collected  and  analyzed  through Map  Spot  to  identify  challenges  in  their  community  and  to design  green  infrastructure  solutions to  disaster  vulnerability. They  identify  the  benefits  of their  solutions  and  practice  presenting  their  action  plan before  doing  a  formal  presentation  to  leaders  to advocate  for  change  and  improve disaster  resilience  in  their  own  backyards. And  so  you  can  see  here  some  of  the  kids  preparing, especially  in  the  first  summer  camp  that  we  did, the  first  summer  camp  was  just  the  first  time  we  did  it, so  they  were  doing  kind  of  basic tri  folds  where  they  drew  a  lot. So  also  kids  that  liked  art also  like  our  program  as  well. We  didn't  do  an  assessment  and  evaluation  to  validate the  program  and  the  effectiveness  of the  curriculum  using  quantitative survey  data  from  the  students, as  well  as  qualitative  feedback from  the  students  and  teachers. And  we  also  did  an  interview  of  decision  makers  who attended  those  sessions  to  get  better  understanding  of, like,  what  did  they  think was  successful  about  the  program  and  not. So  what  have  we  found  so  far? Overall,  we  found,  I  mean, I  guess  everybody  wants  to say  that  it's  somewhat  of  a  success. I  mean,  but  I  probably  am  biased. But  essentially,  this  is  what  we  found. We  found  that  students  increase their  self  efficacy  for  advocacy  behaviors. So  by  self  efficacy, it  means  that  students  think  that  if they  want  to  be  an  advocate  for  change, then  it's  going  to  have  some  kind  of  actual  effect, that  they  basically  have  some  kind  of  power, specifically  related  to  understanding, preparing  for  and  responding  to  natural  disasters. And  they  also  increase  their  understanding  of the  importance  of  course  topics like  infrastructure  and  data  use. Resilience  is  still  a  fancy  word for  middle  school  students. We  find  that  that's one  of  the  words  that  they  struggle  with  the  most. Environmental  justice, when  you  try  and  teach middle  schoolers  environmental  justice, at  the  end,  they  typically  think it's  protecting  the  environment. So  environmentalism,  environmental  justice is  something  that  they  kind  of  struggle  with. So  that's  something  we're  going  to  keep  working  on. Parents  noted  that  their  children really  enjoyed  the  program  and liked  that  they  were  learning things  that  are  not  being  taught  in  the  classroom. So,  honestly,  a  lot  of the  kids  don't  know  their  parents'  cell  numbers. They  also  don't  have  any  kind of  emergency  plan,  even  in  Savannah. So  we  had  kids  actually  develop  like a  home  emergency  plan  and  just  kind of  making  aware  that  they  probably  should memorize  their  parents'  cell in  case  their  own  cell  phone  goes  out, that  they  have  a  way  to  contact  their  families. And  we  did  this twice  as  a  summer  camp and  once  as  an  after  school  program. So  what  are  we  going  to  be  doing  in  the  future? So  we  have  several  next  steps. First,  we're  going  to  continue  to analyze  the  reports  and  the  data. We've  already  published  one  article  1  is forthcoming  on  some  of  our  research, and  we  have  a  lot  of  other  papers  in  progress. We're  thinking  about  expanding this  within  Chatham  County. So  Chatham  County  is  the  county  that Savannah  is  a  coastal  county  where  Savannah  is  located. As  well  as  throughout  coastal  Georgia, but  also  potentially  thinking  about  rural  areas, like  we  saw  the  devastation that  Helene  had  throughout  rural  Georgia, like  Valdosta,  all  the  way  up  to  Western  North  Carolina. So  I  don't  think  that  this  should just  be  a  coastal  program. There  will  be  some  adjustments  that we'll  have  to  make  if  we  move  inland, like  places  even  like  Atlanta.  But  that  is  our  goal. Our  innovative  curriculum  design will  be  made  available  through an  open  source  learning  environment that  can  be  transferred  to communities  across  the  country, helping  to  develop  a  new  generation  of  leaders, advocates,  and  promoters  of  disaster  resilience. Um  so  we  also  with funding  from  BBIS  were  able  to  do  this  in  South  Africa. So  we  did  a  similar  program this  fall  in  Cape  Flats  of  South  Africa. So  Cape  Town  is  one  of the  major  cities  in  South  Africa.  I  don't  know. I  probably  should  have  included  a  map, but  so  the  Central  Business District  of  Cape  Town  is  here. There's  a  big  mountain  called  Table  Mountain that  kind  of  divides  the  city from  what's  called  the  Flats. This  is  a  highly  segregated  high  poverty  area on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain,  the  Cape  Flats. And  so  we  did  this  program  there  as  you  can  see, there  is  different  kind  of infrastructure  that  is  available  there. We  were  still  able  to  do  Map  Spot,  but  we  weren't  able. There  was  one  electrical  outlet  for  the  entire  room. And  so  we  had  to  then  split  that  outlet to  do  some  of  the  technology that  we  did  here  in  the  United  States. And  so  we  were  able  to  still  do  MPSpot. The  kids  were  super  interested  in  not  only what  the  situation  is  in  um,  Cape  Town. But  also,  they  were  curious  about  the  United  States. They  looked  at  some  of  the  data. They  were  really  interested in  differences  by  poverty  and  race, and  they  were  not  surprised  to find  that  Black  and  brown  communities  in the  United  States  have  similar  challenges that  they  do  in  South  Africa. As  you  all  know,  Apartheid  ended,  1994, still  significant  inequalities  in  South  Africa. They  were  much  more  attuned  to  issues  of  racism, I  think,  than  you  would  see here  with  students  in  the  United  States. Um  but  it  was  still  a  success.  It  was  cold. So  it  was  in  August, late  August  of  2024. Do  y'all  know  what  season  late  August  is  in Cape  Town?  It's  winter. So  that's  why  the  kids  even  though  it  was  August, it  was  95  degrees  here. It  was  like  40  degrees  there. So  you  can  see  some  of  the  kids  are  in, like,  hoodies  and  things  like  that. I  think  it's  really  important to  empower  youth  to  tell  their  stories. We  found  that  we  did  the  curriculum  there. It  was  a  two  day  version  of  the  curriculum. For  these  youth,  they  were we  taught  them  about  climate  resilience  and  disasters. That  was  not  what  they  were  as  much  concerned  about. So  in  their  community,  they said  that  when  they  go  outside, they  see  issues  of  violence,  drugs,  unemployment. So  they  wanted  to  address  issues  of  gangsterism. And  so  when  they  developed  their  action  plans, we  had  to  pivot, they  really  weren't  seeing why  climate  resilience  was  super  relevant  to  them. We  wanted  to  make  whatever  action  plan  they develop  to  be  relevant  to whatever  their  most  immediate  needs  were. And  so  they  developed  action  plans  to  address gangsterism  and  kind  of youth  empowerment  in  their  community. And  so,  ultimately,  you  can  see  them  kind of  start  to  design  those  plans  and  address  them  here. And  Mustafa  Shabaz  was  one  of  the  guys, our  project  manager,  but  he  was  one  of the  important  folks  kind  of  leading  these  conversations. And,  I  mean,  he  really  said  that  it's  really important  to  not  hold  kids  back, like,  kind  of  think  about  what  is  most  important  to  them. Like,  obviously,  you  want  to  teach  them about  maybe  climate  sustainability  related  issues. That  might  not  be  their  most  important  need. So  sometimes  you  have  to  pivot. And  I  think  that's  something  that Sear  Hub  has  experienced  with a  Smart  sea  level  sensor  project. They  found  we  came  in to  Savannah  really  wanting  to  address  flooding. But  then  when  you  talk  to community  members,  they're  like, we  are  not  as  concerned  about flooding  as  we  are  air  quality. Things  like  this  when  you  do  community  engaged  research, sometimes  you  have  to  pivot. You  can  still  address  those  issues that  you  think  are  important, but  you  have  to  prioritize  what the  community  feels  is  important  first. And  so  this  is  our  full  group in  winter  out  there,  they  were  freezing, not  really  happy,  and  the  sun was  in  their  eyes  as  they  were  trying  to  take this  picture  in  our yard  T  shirts  at  the  end  of  the  program. And  so  we  do  hope  to  continue  to  do  work  in  South  Africa. I  think  that's  a  priority  that  I  have. We'll  just  have  to  seek  additional  funding  for  that. But  overall,  that  is a  brief  kind  of  overview  of  our  program  and  research. This  is  a  list  of  all  the  folks  here. It  was  funded  by  the  National  Science  Foundation, but  also  BBIS  as  well  as  to  some  extent, IPAT  here  at  Georgia  Tech. And  I  think  that  is  it. Any  questions,  comments?  Thank  you. And  then  also,  Michelle  is  here. If  y'all  have  any  questions  for  Michelle, sorry  to  put  you  on  the  spot,  but  you  can also  ask  questions.  Yep. Youth  advocacy  for  resilience  to  disasters. Let  me  put  it  on  the  first  slide. Yeah.  Sure. So  are  there  existing instruments  that  measure  resilience? So  it  kind  of  depends  on  so  this  is  something  that  we actually  talked  about  in a  workshop  in  South  Carolina  recently, you  got  to  define,  okay, what  are  we  who  are  we  wanting  to  be  resilient? And  then  what  are  we  being  resilient  against, and  what  is  the  goal  of  that? I  think  right  now, we  don't  have  measures  of  resilience. The  way  we  are  trying  to  assess  this  is  that there  has  been  research  that  shows  that  self  efficacy  and advocacy  behaviors  can  help  improve  resilience. So  we're  kind  of  measuring  some  of these  things  that  other  people have  found  to  improve  resilience, but  we  don't  have  a  direct  measure  of, are  these  kids  more  resilient? Now,  I  can't  I  would  be great  to  do  a  follow  up  if  there  was  a  hurricane  to  see. But  then  it's  also  kind  of  awkward  to  ask  them. You  just  went  through  a  disaster.  Like,  how did  you  and  your  family  react? So  it  is  hard  to  assess, like,  how  do  they  react  when  an  actual  disaster  occurs. There  are  programs  that  people  have  done AR  and  VR  kind  of disaster  simulations  that  can  cause  kids  to  cry. So  we  haven't  really  necessarily  done  that. But  we  did  have  one  kid  cry just  even  talking  about  disasters, so  we  also  have  to  be  sensitive to  some  of  those  things  as  well. I  think  there  is  a  question  over  here? Yeah,  I  think  from  an  infrastructure  standpoint, we  didn't  see  a  whole  lot  of  that. We  did,  as  far  as students  thinking  because  these are  middle  school  students. But  what  we  did  see  more  on  the  social  side,  right? So  they  began  to  notice, why  are  there  no  hospitals  on  one  entire  side  of  town? And  so  some  of  the  action  plans  or why  are  there  no  doctors  offices  on  this  side  of  town. So  one  of  the  action  plans  that this  group  developed  was  to  develop a  resilience  hub  that then  had  some  kind  of  medical  facility, but  we  also  tried  to explain  building  a  hospital  is  probably out  of  the  scope  of  budget for  something  for  the  city  to  do, but  could  we  do  something  to  address  that  systemic  issue. But  when  it  came  to  infrastructure,  I  don't  know, Michelle,  do  you  feel  like  we would  be  able  to  address  that? Yeah,  I  feel  like  part  of  it  is,  you  know, making  them  aware  of,  like, they  didn't  even  really  understand  MS  to  begin  with, and  I  called  these  spatial  disparities. So,  it  started  out  just  kind  of  trying  to introduce  them  to  spatial  data  in  general, like  how  I  can  inform  decision  making. But  yeah,  like,  we  tried  to  teach  about green  infrastructure  while  at  the  same  time  not  doing, this  is  exactly  what  green  infrastructure  is, so  they  still  had  some  flexibility and,  like,  creative  processes. So  we  did  show,  like,  canals. So  Savannah  has  some  canals, kind  of  like  New  Orleans,  but  they're much  smaller  than  New  Orleans  canals. So  we  did  show  those  and  show,  like, that  flooding  can  occur  around  those, which  is  kind  of  what  it's  intended  to  do  in  some  ways. But  we  also  showed  other  types  of  I  guess, features  like  the  Savannah  River  and  also  the  coast, but  not  as  much  on  infrastructure, more  about  those,  ecological  systems. So  the  students  began  to  notice  that. Yeah.  Other  questions.  Yep. So  I'm  from  Savannah  Oh,  nice. Program.  But  I'm  kind  of  curious  about  is, what  is  the  follow  up  with  students? Do  they  continue  to  be  part  of any  kind  of  program  afterwards? Just  kind  of  like  ints  the  idea  to. Yeah,  so  Mercer  Middle  School  is  where  we  did  the  pilot. We're  probably  did  worse  at  following  up  with youth  in  the  summer  camps because  they're  coming  from sometimes  all  over  the  country. But  at  the  Mercer  Middle  School. So  they  are  developing  a  basically, they're  doing  steam  certification  at  the  school, so  that  then  allows  them  to develop  this  cohort  of students  that  are  going  to  be,  I  think, called  Planet  tarians  or  something  like  that  that are  going  to  be  kind  of  focusing on  this  and  going  through  the  school. So  there's  a  school  route. We  also  encourage  them  to  look  at  other  programs like  the  city  of  Savannah  has  a  youth  leadership  program. We  encourage  them  to  go  there. We  also  encourage  them  to  think  about the  Black  Youth  Leadership  Development  Institute that  the  Harambe  House  does. So  the  teacher,  it  would  be  great. Since  this  was  only  a  year  ago, it  would  be  great  to  then  follow up  and  see  if  the  teacher has  found  that  these  students are  staying  engaged  on  these  topics  or  not. Um  but  I  think  since  it  was  so  recent, we  still  don't  have,  like, a  solid  assessment  of, like,  what  are  they  doing  now?  Yeah. Yep. So  that's  one  thing  I  thought  that  I had  in  there  that  I  didn't  really  cover. So  one  of  the  challenges  is  well, maybe  I'll  step  back  and  say  some  of  the  good  things. I  meant  to  include  pictures, but  apparently  in  this  version,  forgot  to  include  them. But  we  did  have  senators  or  staffers  from Senator  Warnock  and  Asos  office  attend the  Mercer  Middle  School  presentations.  They  loved  it. They  gave  us  feedback.  They  actually gave  me  a  bunch  of  federal  grants, none  of  which  were  really  relevant, but  they  gave  me  lots  of  things. They  were  really  excited. But  typically,  what  the  challenge  is, you  see  cities  and,  I  guess, even  state  representatives  kick  stuff  back to  the  youth  and  the  group  that's doing  some  of  these  ideas, and  what  you  really  need  is  a  budget  and that  would  be  related  to infrastructure  that  then  could  implement  this. So  I  think  in  future  versions, we  need  to  budget  for  that. Otherwise,  we  also  asked  the  kids, if  your  plans  don't  get  implemented, do  you  think  it's  still  important? And  they  said,  Yes,  because  A, we  think  that  people  should  listen  and  they  should  get. Implemented,  but  also  be that  it's  just  really  important  to  kind  of us  to  learn  about  this  and  also  other  people to  learn  about  it  and  raise awareness  of  these  issues  even if  our  specific  plans  don't  happen. So  I  think  in  future  versions, we  would  like  to  include  some  kind  of budget  that  allows  some  of  the  plans  to  go forward  or  agree  to  work with  organizations  that  have that  budget  already,  that  could  then  do  it. So,  let's  say  it's  a  school, so  the  school  would  have  a  budget  set aside  that  could  then  lead  to some  change  around  the  school that  helps  it  become  more  resilient. Yep.  Yeah.  Mm  hm. Right.  Yeah. Rebuild. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah,  I  mean,  Yeah, I  think  we  do  see  that demographically  people  are  moving  more  to  the  coast, even  though  we're  showing all  these  projections  of  sea  level  rise. I  don't.  There's  a  variety of  reasons  why  this  is  occurring. Part  of  it  is  because  People want  to  live  near  the  coast  and people  can  do  more  remote  work. Now,  I  think  we've  seen  kind  of coastal  cities  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina. More  people  are  moving  to  those  areas because  they  can  work  remotely. But  the  other  issue  is  that federal  disaster  relief  funds  tend  to  go  to  homeowners. And  so  it  not only  is  just  encouraging  homeowners  to  build  there, but  also  renters  don't  get  that  aid. So  only  the  property  owners  would  get  that  aid. So  we  actually  see  that  sometimes people  will  add  renovations and  build  up  their  property  value. So  they  take  out  loans,  do  renovations. Then  the  federal  government  provides  loans  based  on their  property  value  that  then basically  pays  for  their  renovations. So  there  are  some  issues  with  federal  aid. I'm  not  saying  we  shouldn't  have  federal  aid. We're  going  to  need  federal  aid,  but  I  do think  these  are  things  that  I  mean, this  research  isn't  exactly  on  that, but  I  do  think  it's  something  that  we  have  to  talk  about, and  it  actually  is  probably  driving  more  inequality because  it  tends  to  focus  on  homeowners  and  not  renters. Now  a  lot  of  these  areas. Uh  huh.  Yeah,  yeah. Mm  hm.  It  Right. One  of  the  difficult  things is  in  the  middle  school  curriculum  now, I  think  they  talk  about  disasters  and  hazards, like,  I  guess,  they kind  of  natural  disasters  and  hazards. I  mean,  in  our  proposal, we  explain  that  there's  nothing completely  there's  not  100%  natural  disaster. These  are  often  because  of social  issues  related  to  the  infrastructure, related  to  where  people  are  moving, but  it's  hard  to  teach  middle  school  students that  complex  of  a  thing  at  first. So  we're  trying  to  get  at  some  of this  kind  of  this  topic, we  try  to  teach  some  of  the  kids  about  it, but  the  issue  is  that  the  curriculum talks  about  natural  disasters  first. So  we  do  kind  of  see  that. I  think  the  youth  that  we  worked  with, they  see  how  these  things  are  social  and  not  just, like,  an  act  of  God. We  really  kind  of  tried  to  push  against  that. We  in  Georgia,  I  think  we  can't  I'm not  sure  what  the  current  state  of  how  you can  talk  about  climate  change  as  the  main  cause. We  do  briefly  talk  about  it, but  we  can't  get  into there's  limits  on  what public  school  teachers  can  talk  about. So  Yeah. Right.  Mm  hmm. Yeah,  yeah.  Right. So  sometimes  unfortunately,  some  of the  flooding  areas  are around  or  could  be  more  expensive  property, but  sometimes  flooding  occurs, especially  in  flooding  occurs around  rivers  which  have  low  property  value. So  sometimes  people  don't  have  a  choice. Now,  if  we  make  a  choice if  we  have  the  ability  to  make a  choice  about  where  we  live, it  would  be  wise  to  maybe  not live  there.  Sorry,  next  question.  Yeah. Strategies  that  you  guys  to  use  Mm  hmm. Silence.  How  did you  guys  talk  Yeah,  yeah. I  mean,  it  was  also  a  two  day  version  of  the  camp, so  we  really  didn't  get  to  know  the  kids  as  much  in. So  usually  they  make  their  action plans  like  eight  sessions, nine  sessions  in,  but  we  were trying  to  do  this  on  the  first  day or  maybe  the  second  day. So  we  had  less  time  to really  make  that  connection  and  trust  with  the  youth. We  did  also  have,  though, their  youth  leaders  as  part  of  the  activities. They  probably  should  have had  a  little  bit  more  training  and  engagement, so  they  weren't  as  engaged  as  we  would  have  liked. So  it  was  really,  I  guess, what  we  started  the  project starts  about  what  is  community. So  we  talk  about  community, have  them  draw  pictures  of  their  community, and  immediately  they  start  drawing  pictures of  guns  and  things  in  their  pictures. So  we  didn't  This  started  to  raise  some  alarm  bells. And  then  when  we  started  to  ask  you  ask  the  youth, what  do  they  want  to  develop  an  action  plan  on. They  all  said,  one  question  that  I had  is  that  because  they're deciding  this  is  the  most important  issue  in  their  community  or  because that's  what  adults  have  told  them  is the  most  important  issue  in  their  community, it's  unclear  so  we  wanted  to let  the  kids  kind  of guide  where  they  went  with  their  action  plan. But  it  was  I  was  just  done. Because  we  did  a  two  day  version, it  just  kind  of  happened  pretty  quickly. But  it  is  a  sensitive  topic, and  that's  one  of the  things  is  if  you  ask  people  to  draw  their  community, especially  kids,  instead  of  asking  them, you're  getting  a  lot  of information  in  a  way  that's  not  invasive. So  when  you  ask  kids  to  draw  or  maybe  even  say, like,  tell  me  about  home. Like,  what  do  you  see,  smell,  touch, here  that  will  give  you  an  idea without  asking  awkward  questions that  we  didn't  want  to  ask  those  questions, and  I  didn't  even  know  until  we  got  there how  difficult  the  situation  can  be.  So  yeah. Stick  with  middle  schoolers your  future  studies  or  moving  on  to  upper  grades, high  schools  get  better  under  school  situations. Yeah,  so  this  is  actually a  topic  we've  debated  quite  a  bit. We  found  that  ninth  graders, so  we  did  sixth  to  eighth, but  we  found  that students  that  just  finished  eighth  grade, the  rising  ninth  graders  do  the  best. So  we  did  a  summer  camp  that  was just  targeting  them,  and  they  did  amazing. That's  because  a  lot  of  kids don't  really  think  of their  community  in  relation  to  other  communities. They  just  kind  of  are  I  don't  know, a  lot  of  people  talk  about  main character,  main  character  syndrome, but,  like,  you're  just  kind  of  going  through  life and  just  thinking  about  you  and, like,  how  do  you  interact  in  your  community. As  kids  get  older,  they  start to  think  relationally  and  like,  Okay, here's  how  somebody  else  is  experiencing  something or  here's  how  my  community is  different  from  somewhere  else. So  I  think  we  do  find  that  older  kids  are  better. Now  the  teachers  say,  even if  younger  kids  aren't  good  at  this, it's  good  to  expose  them  to it  and  start  to  get  them  to  think  that  way. So  we've  had  debates  over  whether  this  be  high  school, middle  school  because  there's you  can  get  better  action  plans  with  older  kids, but  you're  getting  people  to  think  differently if  you  do  younger  kids,  if  that  makes  sense. You  have  Russ?  I'm  just  going  to  add  one  of  one  of the  reasons  it  comes  down  to why  a  lot  of  these  programs we  do  with  middle  school.  Oh,  yes. It's  just  high  school  students are  too  distracted  by  all  the  other  things  they're  doing. They  have  cars,  they  have  jobs, they  have  organized  sports. It's  harder  to  get  them to  commit  to  coming  to  something  like this  and  being  involved  in  this after  school  program  or  a  Saturday  program. And  that's  just  one  of  the  realities of  some  of  these  youth  programs  that  we've  done, like  be  seismic  and  other  engagement, it's  just  hard  to  get  high  school  students to  engage  sometimes. So  after  school  programs  in  particular  are hard  because  you're  competing  with  sports, jobs,  especially  for  high  school, but  sports  jobs,  music, dance,  all  these  things. So  we  actually  are  thinking  about  working  with steam  certifying  schools  on doing  project  based  learning  in  the  classroom. We  thought  that  would  be  too  much  for  teachers  to,  like, us  to  be  like,  Here's  the  curriculum, but  actually  teachers  are  looking for  project  based  learning. So  to  get  those  athletes to  get  people  that  are  maybe  a  bit  more  flaky, it  would  be  better  to  do  it  in  the  classroom. And  that  steam  certifying  schools are  probably  the  way  that  we  could  do  that. Yeah.  Question.  Hi.  Yeah,  I  was  curious. Insofar  a  lot  of  this  ispace  by  your  community. Like,  if  you  either  have  seen  kids  who  have recently  moved  or  thinking  ahead to  how  often  might  involve, like,  moving  migration, like  what  that  might  look  like  for  people who  have  recently  moved  s  place  or  otherwise. Yeah,  yeah,  no,  I  think  that's  a  good  question. I  mean,  we  had  So  when  we  do  the  summer  camps, the  kids  are  not  just  in  one  neighborhood. They're  coming  from  different  areas. And  then  they  get  to  learn  about  different  parts  of  the, like,  let's  say,  the  Savannah  area. But  then  we  also  had  a  young  woman,  I  think. Was  she  from  Chicago  or  I  can't  remember. She  was  from  somewhere  else. So  there  is  benefit  to  Evan  doing this  program  in  places  that  you're  not  as  familiar  with. But  this  issue  of  migration is  something  that  we  can  consider, and  I  think  that  might  be  better  for  older  students, but  I  think  that's  a  great  idea.  Any  other  questions? I  don't  even  know  what  time  it  is,  so. What  is  the  balance of  teaching  them  about the  bigger  issue  in  communities  and then  things  they  can  do  themselves  if  there  is a  disaster  like  action  the  balance  between  those  two? So  the  way  the  curriculum  works is  there's  more  focus  on  the  action  plan, but  we  really  want  it  also. They  have  one  particular  activity  where  they  have  to they  take  home  something  that  talks about  the  family  action  plan  and focuses  on  what  they  can  do. We  had  even  within the  action  plan  that's kind  of  the  community  oriented  one, some  of  the  kids  took  stuff  on  their  own. So  one  youth,  one  young  man in  Mercer  Middle  School,  he  found. So  we  usually  picked  plots  that  were FEMA  FEMA  occupied  lots. So  these  are  lots  that  had  flooded  in  the  past, and  then  FEMA  buys  them  because they're  gonna  keep  getting  flooded. So  these  lots  you  can't  build private  you  can't  build another  home  on  this  because  it  floods  so  much. But  what  you  can  do  is  build  a  park. So  we  allowed  the  kids  to  kind  of design  these  parks  in these  spaces  that  FEMA  had  bought  up. Um,  so  one  of  the  kids  found  out  who owned  the  lot  and  then  wanted  to contact  them  and  present  the  plan  to  this  person, that  actually  owned  a  lot, like  how  he  looked  all  this  up. I'm  not  sure.  He  developed  a  letter, and  mom  his  mom  and grandmother  came  and  watched  the  presentation, but  he  was  really  into  it. And  so  I  think some  of  the  kids  began  to  take  things  on  themselves. Um  but  that  balance  tended  to  focus  on  the  community, but  we  really  tried  to  make  sure,  Hey, you  need  to  plan  for  yourself  because, I  mean,  hopefully  tomorrow,  you'll  have  a  plan. I  know  some  people  are  going  to  be  driving  home early  today  so  that  they're  not  going  to  be stuck  here  in  Atlanta  if  you  live  out  of  city. But  I  think  I  meant  to put  I  think  I  turned  this  in  on  Tuesday, so  I  didn't  add,  like, a  Snowmageddon  slide,  but  it's  really  going  to  be important  to  have  a  plan  for  tomorrow, like,  try  not  to  drive. Make  sure  probably  should  get  a  little  bit  of  food. I  don't  know  how  bad  it's  going  to  be, but  definitely  don't  be  on  the  road  tomorrow. I  think  that  would  be  unwise. So  there's  this  balance  of individual  responsibility  and  community  that  we  do, but  we  also,  as  everybody  here, should  try  and  remember  that,  as  well. And  also  kind  of  think  of  the  people  that  are  homeless. Like  what  are  they  going  to  be  experiencing  tomorrow? I  think  we  have  to  kind  of  keep that  balance  between  community  and  individual  always. Any  other  questions?  Well,  any  other  final  questions? Thank  you  all  for  coming.  Please  be  safe.  Amor. I  appreciate  it.