Learning in Crisis: Training Students to Monitor and Address Irresponsible Knowledge Construction by US Federal Agencies under Trump

Chris Tirrell; Laura Senier; Sara Ann Wylie; Cole Alder; Grace Poudrier; Jesse DiValli; Marcy Beck; Eric Nost; Rob Brackett; Gretchen Gehrke

doi:10.17351/ests2020.313

Chris Tirrell Northeastern University
Laura Senier Northeastern University
Sara Ann Wylie Northeastern University
Cole Alder Northeastern University
Grace Poudrier
Jesse DiValli Northeastern University
Marcy Beck Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)
Eric Nost Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)
Rob Brackett Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)
Gretchen Gehrke Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.313

Keywords: critical making, making and doing, data justice, knowledge production, climate denial

Abstract

Immediately after President Trump’s inauguration, US federal science agencies began deleting information about climate change from their websites, triggering alarm among scientists, environmental activists, and journalists about the administration’s attempt to suppress information about climate change and promulgate climate denialism. The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) was founded in late 2016 to build a multidisciplinary collaboration of scholars and volunteers who could monitor the Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations and science deemed harmful to its industrial and ideological interests. One of EDGI’s main initiatives has been training activists and volunteers to monitor federal agency websites to identify how the climate-denialist ideology is affecting public debate and science policy. In this paper, we explain how EDGI’s web-monitoring protocols are being incorporated into college curricula and how, in this way, EDGI’s work aligns with STS work on “critical making” and “making and doing.” EDGI’s work shows how STS scholars can establish new modes of engagement with the state that demand a more transparent and trustworthy relationship with the public, creating spaces where the public can define and demand responsible knowledge practices and participate in the process of creating STS inspired forms of careful, collective, and public knowledge construction.

Author Biographies

Chris Tirrell, Northeastern University

Chris Tirrell is a sociology PhD student at Northeastern University and was a member of EDGI’s web monitoring team during the spring of 2019, where he monitored changes made to the EPA’s International Cooperation subdomain. His current research focuses on the roles that social media and personal branding play for workers in the 21^st century, specifically regarding the culture industry.

Laura Senier, Northeastern University

Laura Senier is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences at Northeastern University and a Core Faculty member at the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute (SSEHRI). Her research has identified barriers in research translation, or the migration of scientific knowledge into practical applications, and community mobilization in response to environmental injustice. She is collaborating with two groups of teen environmental justice activists on a study to examine the effects of green and blue recreational amenities on mental health and emotional well-being among urban teens.

Sara Ann Wylie, Northeastern University

Sara Wylie is an Assistant Professor of Sociology/Anthropology and Health Sciences in Northeastern University’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute. Wylie is a co-founder of Public Lab and EDGI, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. Wylie seeks to develop research tools, collaborations and platforms for studying and creating accountability for the fossil fuel and allied petrochemical industries. Her book Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds with Duke University Press (2018) analyzes the U.S. boom in unconventional energy production.

Cole Alder, Northeastern University

Cole Alder is a 4^th year undergraduate student in sociology with minors in ethics and environmental studies at Northeastern University. Since January of 2018, he has worked as a research assistant under Dr. Phil Brown and Dr. Alissa Cordner’s PFAS Project Lab, a group of faculty, post-doctoral scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates affiliated with the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University. Studying the social discovery of a class of emerging contaminants known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the lab investigates the emergence of lay awareness, government involvement, media coverage, lititgation, and advocacy surrounding a national PFAS drinking water contamination crisis.

Grace Poudrier

Grace Poudrier is a sociology PhD student at Northeastern University and a member of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute and the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative. She is interested in how embodied illness experience and citizen science are deployed to challenge orthodox science and knowledge-making practices, as well as to evince corporate accountability for chemical and environmental violence.

Jesse DiValli, Northeastern University

Jesse DiValli is a PhD student at Northeastern University, where he focuses on research related to riskscapes, sustainability, and effects of rapid neighborhood change in urban environments. He is a member of the Social Science Environmental Research Institute on its Water Equity Team, supporting research on social issues related to urban water resources and provision.

Marcy Beck, Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)

Marcy Beck has been a member of EDGI’s web monitoring team since September 2017. She served as Program Development Leader for energy efficiency and climate change programs at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and is currently a working Board Member of Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods in northern California.

Eric Nost, Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)

Eric Nost has been a member of EDGI’s web monitoring team since February 2017 and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Geomatics at the University of Guelph. He researches how data and digital technologies inform environmental governance and has previously collaborated in efforts to visualize US EPA data on the North American hazardous waste trade (https://geography.wisc.edu/hazardouswaste/).

Rob Brackett, Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)

Rob Brackett has been a member of EDGI’s web monitoring team since February 2017 and works as a software engineering consultant. He maintains the open-source software projects that support EDGI’s web monitoring work and helps to guide the team’s technical analysis efforts.

Gretchen Gehrke, Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)

Gretchen Gehrke is a cofounder of EDGI and leads EDGI’s web monitoring team. Prior to her work with EDGI, Gehrke researched environmental transformations and remediation of toxic trace metals and supported communities in conducting low cost environmental studies.

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