Summary

KUTÍ (the Tlingit word for weather) is an NSF-funded initiative that engages communities, researchers, and tribal representatives across South East Alaska, University of Oregon, and Oregon State University. We employ a participatory co-design process to identify major community issues involving climate, weather, and environment. These impacts include climate change, landslide hazards, subsistence practices, traditional activities, natural resources, and the tourism industry. Collaborating to identify needs, we co-design novel monitoring systems to assist with these issues. By co-design, we mean a creative, participatory process of fashioning solutions to public policy challenges in which community members and scientists collaborate as equals.

In this video, Quinn Ibedara, born and raised in Klawok, talks about one of the more life-threatening issues in the community, landslides. Other initial concerns communicated by these communities include the alarming decline of yellow cedar due to climate change, which is important for trade, traditional crafting of totem poles and baskets, and construction.  

Brief Background on Organization or Client/Sponsor

Chet Udell

Oregon State Professor of Biological and Ecological Engineering, Director of the Openly Published Environmental Sensing Lab.

KUTÍ

This initiative includes the communities, researchers, and tribal representatives from Sitka, Yakutat, Haines, Skagway, Hoonah, Craig, and Kasaan; Central Council Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, RAND Corporation, University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as Sitka Tribe of Alaska, USDA Forest Service, National Weather Service, Alaska Division of Geology and Geophysical Services and U.S Geologic Survey. 

Outcomes:

We’re open to student teams applying Universal Design Thinking to broad topics related to this project including:

• Engaging directly with SE Alaska community leaders to Brainstorm, ideate, investigate, and document issues and design solutions from social, technical, environmental science, sustainability, business, and creative perspectives. 
• Conducting market, social, and ethics research around the dynamics between making an early warning system for landslide hazards, versus liability of the organizations that provide this service, dynamics defining “risk” and plausibility of danger, etc. 
• Designing a subsystem of an environmental monitoring system, like an app or sensor.
• Design something that would aid in accessibility of data that is being collected to translate essential information to the communities they serve.

Example of an Ongoing Project:

WeatherChimes is an Arduino-based device that collects local weather data and stores it on a cloud database. Utilizing this tool provides creatives and scientists alike the opportunity to obtain and interact with the weather in new and innovative ways and collaborate remotely. Transforming data collection processes of environmental sensors into IoT (internet of things) compatible formats opens new doors into both understanding and interacting with nature. People in the United States tend to spend about 90% of their time indoors, in confined climate-controlled spaces. Ironically, much of what humans know about our world’s environment is inferred by data collected by satellites orbiting 22,000 miles away. In-situ environmental sensor systems are essential for correcting and validating weather measurements, but present options are mostly limited to expensive, proprietary commercial data loggers with complicated data access protocols. WeatherChimes is an open source Internet of Things (IoT) weather station system that enables low-cost, near real-time access to in-situ environmental data anywhere with an internet connection. The device not only collects weather data, but also provides users the opportunity to process their data in third party applications. Transforming data into auditory soundscapes through sonification processes or creative animations are examples of how users can translate data into alternative sensory signals which in turn provide new insights into natural phenomena and new modalities to monitor and explore these data spaces. Each Chime can measure soil moisture, temperature/humidity and luminosity at a site, and log data over ten-minute intervals to the cloud database: MongoDB. The Chime is intended to last for 27 days, with the addition of a solar cell in the next iteration. In this proof of concept, we present the IoT hardware and software system as well as examples of data sonification and visualization tools, like software platform Max8 by Cycling74.

Seeking Skills

• Human/environment studies
• Climate and Environmental Sciences
• Co-design with communities and tribes
• Sensors, Arduino, Electric circuit design
• CAD, 3D printing
• C/C++, Arduino Programming