Featuring a massive LED display wall and two mounted touch screens on each side of the room, DePaul’s brand-new SPARK Center opened its doors to its first-ever event, Explore ChiVes, on Sept. 17.
Dozens of event-goers were given a firsthand look at the new space in the DePaul Center of the university’s Loop Campus. President Robert Manuel was among the guests, and he gave a brief address before the ChiVes presentation.
Formed in 2022, ChiVes is a NASA-backed, community-driven Geographic Information System centered in the greater Chicago area. The platform provides environmental data across Chicago’s communities, such as air quality, number of trees and surface temperature. Since the site launched, over 5,000 people have used the site, but they hope to use events like this to expand further.
ChiVes has ties to DePaul, notably via NASA co-lead Winifred Curran and NASA Project principal investigator Michelle Stuhlmacher, who are both professors in the university’s geography department.
Its creators say GIS like ChiVes presents data that illustrate environmental racism via factors like green spaces in marginalized communities. The platform aims to provide these communities with the information they need to campaign for parks, trees and other resources that would improve their communities.
“Our goal is that through having all the data together in one place, people can access and use the data for environmental justice and other community-led advocacy in Chicago,” Stuhlmacher said. “This could be something like a community organization having easy access to data that could make their grant application more compelling or a neighborhood advocacy organization having the data to back up their request for more transparency on lead pipe remediation.”
The Explore ChiVes event aimed to get the word out about this platform and equip people with the knowledge to use it.
“Making sure the data in ChiVes was usable and digestible was a big focus of our grant,” Stuhlmacher said. Their team made ‘hundreds’ of User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) changes ‘based on formal focus groups and community feedback.’
Eventgoers got to see these UI changes firsthand, as they were directed through the website by Erin Koster and Salise Sepulveda, both DePaul seniors and research assistants on the project.
“We’ve both written tutorials that live on the site and can help people navigate it properly,” Sepulveda said. “We want to help people make the most of the platform.”
ChiVes aims to push the boundaries of what a GIS can do, and Curran believes that begins with their interpersonal approach to this science.
“We started with an environmental approach, but we started to uncover a lot of socioeconomic and health concerns and that became our core,” Curran said.
ChiVes has since formed partnerships with community organizations like “Mujeres por Espacios Verdes” (Women for Green Spaces) and “Instituto del Progreso Latino” (Latino Progress Institute).
Much of ChiVes’ content is sourced directly from and determined by their community partners, researchers and civic groups. Their content reflects this, as it pairs environmental data with socioeconomic classifications.
The center opened on Sept. 1 as a part of the Designing DePaul Initiative. Organizers say projects like this reflect the SPARK Center’s mission.
“While ChiVes isn’t a SPARK project, it’s a great example of the type of work we will be doing,” Leanne Wagner, director of the SPARK Center, said. “It has the mix of the community partners, the academic partners, policymakers, and even people from other schools, all working together to address challenges in our communities.”
Wagner said she hopes the space can be used for more community projects and events.
“Our vision for the space is for it to be a catalyst for change in Chicago,” Wagner said. “We want to use data and visualization to help convene partners around socioeconomic challenges, sustainability, and other areas of the Designing DePaul Initiative.
Editors Note: A link has been updated to reflect the SPARK center’s current web address.
Related Stories:
- Planting seeds of change: DePaul’s New Latin American and Latino Studies Professor highlights environmental racism
- Life expectancy disparities in Chicago prompt calls for environmental justice
- Research team seeks to expand access to environmental data in Chicago: NASA grant provides funding for research, expansion of ChiVes database
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