COMMUNITY SCIENCE AS A MECHANISM TO EMPOWER COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN DECISION MAKING

Community-based science could be considered one of the important forms of mechanisms in where communities are unified in collaboration toward a common shared goal. In the community of Las Terrenas, located in the northeast part of the Dominican Republic, we are working in a community-focused project that pursue the water quality recovery of a local perennial stream named Cano Seco (Dry Stream). In this working group, we pursue a ‘virtuous exchange’ of information and collaboration that involve local traditional knowledge and scientific data collection for the interpretation and assessment of the stream health. Expected results revolve around themes such as geographical relevance, ecosystem health, and science communication by implementing communal workshops in the topics of community-mapping, GIS, water sampling, soil sampling, and stream discharge measurements, as well as other field-based observations. In this collaboration, community members become trained scientist that are ‘agents of change’ that are more educated to make decisions for the well-being of their own community. We anticipate that this model of community science is adapted to nearby neighborhood communities with similar environmental challenges and goals. This ongoing project, is sponsored by the Thriving Earth Exchange, a program from the American Geophysical Union, in collaboration with the local government of Las Terrenas, Science Voices (a non-profit organization), and James Madison University.