A powerful tool for getting citizens involved

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ISeeChange was developed in 2012 as part of a national initiative to pair independent journalists with public broadcasting stations interested in providing more local content in their communities. (The Wyncote Foundation, for which I'm a senior adviser, was one of several funders.) Piloted in Iowa's farming communities, ISeeChange is a technology-enabled, crowdsourced climate and weather journal that has proved to be an effective link among sectors studying and mitigating climate-change disruptions -- citizens, scientists, journalists and public agencies. Citizen participants place and monitor sensors and post blogs that become part of a larger story led by journalists and used by scientists and public agencies, all shared on accessible software platforms.

The applications of ISeeChange in New York City and New Orleans illustrate how much value it can bring to public administrators. In the Harlem Heat project, for example, Harlem residents kept sensors in their homes to measure heat and humidity during the summer months, and the data, displayed in accessible form, was shared to with participants, journalists and public agencies. Community meetings became centers for discussion and analysis of the data, as well as a place for journalists and public officials to hear stories of what that data meant.

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