Data Refuge Stories at the American Geophysical Union
December 19, 2017
Patricia Eunji Kim
Data Refuge launched November 2016 in Philadelphia to draw attention to how climate denial endangers federal environmental data. With the help of thousands of civic partners and volunteers, the project has rapidly spread to over fifty cities and towns across the country.
Now, Data Refuge is building a storybank to document how data lives in the world – and how it connects people, places, and non-human species.
To introduce the next phase of this public project, Data Refuge set up shop at the American Geophysical Union annual conference, held this year in New Orleans in December 2017. Along with project partners the Union of Concerned Scientists and over 24,000 researchers from across the world, Hundreds of data users, producers, and others invested in open and accessible research platforms shared their data stories with us.
Our final tally: Over 200 researchers shared stories from 41 states, Puerto Rico and American Samoa, 15 countries, all seven continents, and outerspace. All of these will be entered in the coming weeks into our storybank, while the portal to add Data Stories online is open at Stories.DataRefuge.Org.
Over the next 6-months, we will pilot Data Refuge Stories in Philadelphia, and then expand nationwide with the involvement of Data Stories Fellows. This exciting next phase is supported in part by a grant from the National Geographic Foundation awarded to PPEH's Faculty Director and grant PI Bethany Wiggin, PPEH Faculty member and anthropologist Tad Schurr, PPEH Graduate Fellow and art historian Patricia Kim, New America's Public Interest Technology Fellow Denice Ross, and the City of Philadelphia's Office of Sustainability Deputy Director Sarah Wu.
To learn more about Data Refuge Stories and stay in contact with us, fill out the form here.
