Civic Engagement Lunch Talk – Phillip A. Boda, Ph.D

‘It’s not just how many people live there, it’s who lives there’: Supporting Racio-Spatial Sense-making using Agentic Environmental Justice Tools

Join Assistant Proffesor Phillip A. Boda, Ph.D and the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement at IPCE’s Civic Engagement Lunch Talk Series.

Chicagoan questions around how indices represent specific variables were unanswerable by the research team, as well as weren’t addressed in the disaggregated version Dr. Phillip A. Boda and his team had hoped would provide a clearer interpretation of multiple variables to help them answer the questions they had about these hazards.

From this, Dr. Boda and team departed to focus on TRIs (as highly reliable, federally regulated environmental hazard sites), population density, and median income, equipping our Environmental Justice Tool (EJT) with simulations. These simulations, rather than animation-based, design features illustrate Chicagoans’ sense-making as the primary driver of development across the three design iterations Dr. Boda's team conducted.

Dr. Boda and team further confirmed that multivariate graphs on EJ issues are insufficient to answer questions from people. By re-confirming past results, Dr. Boda argues to expand knowledge around EJ maps, and envision ‘community-engagement’ beyond what we want them to know; we need to honor the voices from the communities justly.

Lunch boxes will be available - please RSVP to share dietary restrictions

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