Show your support for community science - donate today!
Shannon Dosemagen
Dear all,
As we begin to wrap up another successful year, we want to say THANK YOU for helping make 2017 great!
The Public Lab nonprofit has been working hard to provide the infrastructure necessary for communities across the globe to collaborate on local projects. This year has been one of changing political climates and tangibly changing climate systems as exemplified by the storms, wildfires and other climate related disasters that have seemingly happened every week. Over 2017, Public Lab supported solidarity across regions to grow, with some highlights including:
The 7th Annual Barnraising featuring sessions on disaster response and recovery, microscopes for visualizing pollutants, building an antenna to directly download data from geospatial satellites, and fun and effective facilitation techniques.
A new Gulf Coast initiative that focuses resources on local issues and that, through a series of workshops, looks explicitly into the Gulf’s backyard to generate unique questions and drive exploration.
An Appalachian Barnraising, hosted in Morgantown West Virginia with representatives attending from groups such as Appalachian Mountaintop Patrol, Skytruth, and the Media Information Center at West Virginia University amongst others.
The expansion of community driven and created tools, kits, and hardware kicked off with a drive to prototype a Mini Balloon and Mini Kite Kit. The intent is to get this new generation of smaller, lighter, cheaper, and easier aerial photography kits debugged and ready for anyone to use.
A focused effort to make open source software projects more welcoming and inclusive with the goal of growing the software contributor community in both diversity and size through the development of clearer onramps for new contributors and the writing of onboarding and ‘first-timers-only’ issues, an effort tackled in several Google Summer of Code projects.
As we look ahead to 2018, Public Lab remains dedicated to helping people tell their stories through data and community science, building grassroots networks and innovative tools that help people be heard.
You’ve given so much this year, but as we look toward December 31st, we are asking for your support by making a donation to Public Lab. Make your tax-deductible donation now and help us continue this wonderful momentum as we head into the new year!
Best wishes for the holiday season,
Shannon and the Public Lab nonprofit staff
P.S. Have you signed up for Public Lab's monthly newsletter yet? If not, check out the December edition below and sign up to receive the monthly updates!
From: Public Lab Staff <newsl...@publiclab.org>
Date: Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 12:54 PM
Subject: Public Lab December 2017 Newsletter
No Images? Click here 
December 2017 
NOVEMBER 2017 BARNRAISING: A Local's Perspective from Alahna MooreAs a 90's child in Houma, Louisiana, we would visit LUMCON on school field trips. I remember being charmed by the facility at a young age, a strange and seemingly out of place cement fortress at the end of the world, surrounded by wooden homes raised on stilts to protect them from rising waters. LUMCON has been the site of five Public Lab Barnraisings, in part because it exists at the very fringe of land and water off of the Louisiana coast, at the front lines of climate change in the United States. It's been about two decades since my first visit to LUMCON and the change in landscape is visceral and painful for me to acknowledge. This year's Barnraising brought together a diverse collection of knowledge - experts in their fields ranging from the Gulf coast to the Eastern seaboard, with representatives from the United Kingdom and China present to discuss the ways that we can continue to work collaboratively in order to better understand the environment and make scientific knowledge more accessible. 
Public Lab Kits Initiative: A Year in Review2017 has been an exciting year for Public Lab! In May we were joined by Bronwen Densmore as the Open Hardware Community Manager, and oversaw a move from our longtime home in Portland, Oregon to a new location in Providence, RI, where we were also joined by a new shipping and inventory coordinator, Amanda Snow (who you will meet in next month's newsletter). Read more about our year-end wrap up. We're also very excited to announce our new Community Kits Program, a program designed to connect tool developers from anywhere in the community to the resources of Public Lab's Kits Initiative to help folks build tools and methods that can be produced and distributed through Public Lab's store. Interested? Read our announcement, and then join us at an Open Call to share your ideas!This During this Season of Giving, Please Show Your Support for Public LabThank you for all you've given to the Public Lab community in 2017! As we look toward December 31st, we have one final request-- please consider making a year end donation to the Public Lab nonprofit. Click below to make your tax-deductible donation now, and help us continue this wonderful momentum as we head into the new year! MICROSCOPES: In Focus in New WaysIf you were at the 2017 Barnraising, you might have had a chance to see some of the progress that the team at Parts & Crafts has made on their Raspberry Pi microscope! We're really excited about seeing this project move forward, and expect that 2018 will be a big year for microscopy and particle analysis in Public Lab circles. Follow along (and contribute) in research notes. 
IN CONVERSATION WITH DELANEY GREEN: Public Lab's Administrative CoordinatorQ: You've joined our team in New Orleans- What connects you to your city? I originally came to New Orleans because the city (music, architecture and food especially) reminded me of my time in Senegal as a kid. What encouraged me to stay was the variety of people that call Louisiana home and their unique approach to confronting conflict; through art, creation and a culture of celebration. I think that New Orleans has a transformative and magical quality to it, and I think that the people here use that to adapt to conflict unlike anywhere or anyone else. Q: Speaking of conflict- your education is in Peace Studies. How did you become interested in exploring environmental issues? Peace and Environmental sustainability are two bound fates. In the study of Peace and Conflict, you learn that resources are often the center of dispute, so places that are resource abundant are often the theatre of violence and inequity. Sadly, the severity of climate change also means that no one in my generation can afford to ignore environmental issues. So what are your hobbies outside of Public Lab? My spare time lately has been split between my Pitbull, Wiwa, and my tremendous love of baking French pastries. Luckily Wiwa also loves pastries, so she’s my honorary sous chef! To contact Delany, email her at Del...@publiclab.org.
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Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science
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