Projects

The Asthma Files

is a digital research platform that connects and supports researchers and educators  focused on air pollution and air governance.  Collaborating researchers meet monthly to share project designs and findings. Projects have focused on air pollution in California’s San Gabriel Valley, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and Delhi, India.  The Asthma Files was also the home of RPI EcoEd, which brought research on air pollution to elementary and middle school students and teachers in upstate New York.  Explore the platform here. 

Beyond Environmental Injustice Research and Teaching Collective

connects and supports researchers and educators working against environmental injustice in diverse settings, in diverse ways.  The goal is to build capacity to teach and learn about environmental injustice through the sharing of experiences, expertise and teaching materials.  Learn more about and join the collective here. 

Beyond the Tailpipe Project

funded by the California Department of Justice, brings together researchers in air chemistry, environmental health,  the social sciences, and a community-based organization  to understand pollution from vehicle brakes and tires (pollution that will continue to be a problem once all vehicles are electric). The project is led by AirUCI. EcoGovLab leads the social science component, working closely with MPNA-GREEN, a community-based organization in Santa Ana, California, a city cross-cut by high traffic roadways and ringed by freeways. Learn more about the project here.  

Disaster STS Network

is a digital research platform designed to  link and support  researchers from around the world working to understand, anticipate and respond to many types of disaster.  The platform provides space to archive, share, and collaboratively analyze research  material. It also supports creative forms of research communication, and translation of research into educational programs. Current Projects hosted on the platform include the  Environmental Injustice Global Record, Envisioning Next Generation Radiation Governance, Formosa Plastics Global Archive and the Beyond Environmental Injustice Research and Teaching Collective. Explore the platform here. 

Environmental Injustice Global Record

is a collaborative initiative to build an expansive set of case studies and associated archival material  demonstrating different forms and dynamics of environmental injustice in different settings.  The goal is to build capacity among researchers through side-by-side and collaborative work while also building research resources for use in both  teaching and later research. Learn more about the initiative here. 

EcoEd

is where we translate our research into teaching for students of all ages, in different disciplines, and for community activists and environmental professionals. 

At the University of California-Irvine, EcoGovLab’s EcoEd initiative includes  a lower division, general education  course, “Environmental Injustice,” that teaches students the analytic, interpretive and research skills for understanding uneven distributions of environmental harms across different settings and social groups. The focus is on communities across California with high pollution burdens and health inequities. In examining and writing about these communities, students actively implement understanding of systemic racism, intersectional injustice, and other critical concepts. They also work with diverse knowledge forms, including Indigenous and community knowledge.  Many student members of EcoGovLab came through this course.  

EcoEd also reaches K-12 students and teachers –  through field trips, classroom activities and a research intern program.  In 2022, we are running  intern programs in Santa Ana, California, and in Azusa, California. 

In earlier work – in upstate New York, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) – EcoGovLab co-director Kim Fortun launched EcoEd, working closely with elementary school students and teachers in their classrooms, and with middle school students in an after-school research program. Learn more about RPI EcoEd here.  

Formosa Plastics Global Archive

supports the work of researchers and activists concerned about the operations of Formosa Plastics Corporation, a large multinational corporation headquartered in Taiwan. Collaborators include the  San Antonio Bay Waterkeepers in Calhoun County, Texas and  Justice for Formosa Victims, focused on Formosa’s operations in Vietnam. Explore the archive here. 

Reaching for Just Transition Seminar Series

brings people together to build understanding of the problems that environmental governance needs to be addressed, and to strategize what needs to be done going forward. Labor organizers began speaking in terms of “just transition” in the 1980s, reaching for ways around claims that people had to choose between good jobs and environmental protection. Today, there is accelerating recognition that investment in both environmental protection and new ways of organizing the economy will be critical to inclusive prosperity. Renewed calls for just transition speak to this. Learn more about the series here.