This week in the Public Lab community newsletter (hang in there, its a long one!), check out an opportunity to join the Public Lab nonprofit team, get involved in Google Summer of Code, hear about progress made at SNOWFEST in Vermont and much more. Enjoy!

Announcements

The Public Lab nonprofit is hiring! We’re looking for a dynamic person to join our team as Outreach Manager. We’re looking for someone who is enthusiastic about technology, environmental health and education, has experience doing community outreach, wants to travel and will be a great addition to our collaborative global community! Applications are due March 12th and questions can be sent to shannon@publiclab.org. This position is based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Public Lab has been accepted to Google Summer of Code 2014! Last summer we had three fantastic projects by students in the GSoC program: http://publiclab.org/wiki/gsoc-2013. Now’s the time to brainstorm some new projects: http://publiclab.org/wiki/gsoc-ideas -- join the discussion on the plots-gsoc list, which you can join on that page.

We are also looking for mentors for GSoC; please email jeff@publiclab.org if you're interested or would like to learn more. It's not a huge time commitment and it can result in some extremely helpful advances to some of our web tools.

We’re happy to announce that the Public Lab nonprofit has received support from the Rita Allen Foundation and the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation to expand the incredible work happening in the Northeast region of the United States!

Upcoming events

Public Lab partner, Toxics Action Center will be hosting their annual conference this weekend on March 2nd.

Gulf Coast folks-- How do you envision a healthy gulf future? Join the Gulf Future Coalition for “Gulf Future Salons” in New Orleans, Houston, Biloxi, Orange Beach and Pensacola for a celebration of voices of the vibrant, diverse, and resilient communities of the Gulf Coast.

See you soon Austin! We’ll be having a Public lab meet-up in Austin, TX at Easy Tiger on March 10th beginning at 5pm. Email shannon@publiclab.org to RSVP.

The Gulf Coast Public Lab Chapter will be hosting a get together in New Orleans on Tuesday evening, March 18th to discuss plans and upcoming projects for 2014 in the Gulf Coast region. The meeting will begin at 6pm with dinner cooked and catered by me and Becki. Please RSVP to shannon@publiclab.org so we know how many to cook for.

Hey Los Angeles, are you interested in doing research? Do you have a research project, but need more recruits? How can current science be brought into the classroom? If you’re interested in these topics, consider attending the March citizen science meeting for LA Makerspace. More information here.

New and ongoing projects

SNOWFEST 3D in Salisbury VT was a huge success! Catch up on Thermal Flashlight, Riffle, thermal plume mapping and oil testing kit progress here: http://publiclab.org/tag/snowfest

Ongoing work is being done on the evaluation of pesticide residues in organic raspberries using different extraction solvents. You can read about research being done here.

Members involved with projects in Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal met this week to discuss projects at their respective sites and share strategy, suggestions and plans for 2014.

Project leaders met this week to develop a workshop design for the first meeting with youth of the Ironbound Community Corporation to begin work on a project supported by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation through the Environmental Leadership Program.

A 3D printed spectrometer, using the Public Lab DIY kit, was posted to instructables. Check it out: http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-spectrometer-using-Public-Lab-DIY-kit/

Public Lab in the media

Enabling Cities v.2 is now available in five languages including German, French, English, Spanish and Italian. The intro to the citizen science and mapping section was written by Public Lab Organizers.

Grassroots Mapping Forum 4 is for sale! It includes articles, images and maps by New York City Public Labbers, get yours today!

Research Note highlights

• Preliminary Plymouth Plant plume ponderings (posted by donblair)
• The Blair house project (posted by lauradietz)
• do-it-yourself pole aerial photography (posted by Ecta64)
• 3D date from Image sets and Autostitching (posted by mathew)
• Newtown Creek CAG meeting at EPA (posted by liz)
• Mobile cuvette holder (posted by cfastie)
• DIY PAP part 2 (posted by Ecta64)
• The work of the biosphere (posted by pdonovan)
• More updated maps-- construction site activities near Mocho Park (posted by patcoyle)
• Thermal Flashlight REVA-- mostly built (posted by donblair)

As always, if anything was missed, please email the list or post a research note. Have a great weekend everyone! Shannon

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