What is Civic Engagement & Policymaking?
When community groups are in the driver’s seat, civic engagement can be a powerful force in spurring collective action and policy decisions that advance community priorities. ASTC’s Community Science Framework describes five community-centered ways of working—Community Science Approaches—where community members collaborate with each other, scientists, science engagement practitioners, and others to advance community priorities. As one of the five Approaches to Community Science, Civic Engagement & Policymaking encompasses a broad range of activities, such as research, convenings, and direct advocacy and interaction with policymakers and decision makers, in collaboration with communities. Civic engagement and policymaking, when practiced through a Community Science lens, can improve the quality and sustainability of policy-related decisions, ensure those decisions center community priorities, and build the capacity of all interested parties to advance their goals, address problems, redress inequities, and plan for future challenges.
- Learn about different methods for civic engagement: The Civic Engagement Primer from Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE), while written for philanthropic funders, this resource can help anyone more deeply understand civic engagement. Specifically, this tool includes:
- What is Civic Engagement?, a one-page handout outlining civic values and,
- The Civic Engagement Spectrum, which details different forms of civic engagement at various scales.
Nurture Nature Center’s model for community dialogue programs, From Risk to Resiliency, was developed with support from the National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Civic Engagement & Policymaking Through a Community Science Lens
For scientific issues, civic engagement goals can include:
- democratizing science, knowledge, and decision making,
- increasing diverse representation in science-related decision making,
- engaging more people in science-based issues to ensure new laws and ordinances more effectively reflect community needs, address inequities, and reduce harm.
For example, Public Lab was founded in 2010 following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Seeking to fill a significant gap in community knowledge about the spill’s impacts, Public Lab launched an open-source platform to collect data and create maps of changes in the coastline over time. A group of concerned locals, environmental advocates, designers, and social scientists launched “community satellites” (made from balloons, kites, and digital cameras) over the spill to collect real-time data. Taken together, these aerial images created a more comprehensive view of the spill and its impacts. Media outlets like the BBC and The New York Times featured these high-resolution maps, allowing residents to share their experiences and data. Although Public Lab is no longer formally operating, it continues to offer an open-source, participatory resource for community members to share their experiences with community science.
Community members join Public Lab in a balloon mapping workshop on Hog Bayou, along the Gulf Coast’s Africatown Blueway.
A core part of each youth climate summit hosted by The Wild Center is the creation of Climate Action Plans that serve as a framework for yearlong, student-driven action.
Another example comes from Another example comes from The Wild Center, a natural history museum in Tupper Lake, New York, that facilitates a Youth Climate Program through which high school students develop climate action plans for their schools and communities by engaging in climate science and solutions exercises. In addition to hosting in-person workshops and summits for these youth, The Wild Center shares a wide range of resources to help prepare and support students in pursuing their chosen solutions, including planning tools to help organize community events and program evaluations to help improve their efforts and share findings. Recently, because of this program, Saranac Lake High School students worked with their local government to earn their New York State Climate Smart Communities bronze certification.