Ramirez-Andreotta invited to present Project Harvest at the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
On March 20, 2017, Ramirez-Andreotta described future plans for Project Harvest in the City of Tucson. These activities include building and sustaining a garden and rainwater harvesting system to promote citizen-science and environmental health education among this community. With the help of community members, samples from school and local water-harvesting systems will be taken for analysis, where researchers will assess potential contaminants to monitor the environmental quality of the gardens that these systems irrigate. Major outcomes of this project are the environmental health citizen science program that will be initiated and sustained throughout the selected underserved communities in Arizona and the broad dissemination of research findings. By participating in Project Harvest, participants will be trained in the scientific method and sampling methods, measure bacteria, organic, and inorganic contaminants with our team of environmental scientists over a three-year period. Together with the community, we will co-generate a dataset that will not only inform guidelines and recommendations for safe, harvested rainwater use on gardens, it will support communities to safely and sustainably produce their own foods.