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OpenHour

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OpenHour is an interactive seminar hosted by the Public Lab Community both online and in person. The topics of OpenHour vary from presentations on tools and methods, discussions on environmental issues, to approaches to data-based advocacy. OpenHour is a great way to meet people in the Public Lab Community. Bring your research, your ideas, and your questions; and join us for OpenHour.

OpenHour is held the first Monday of the month. OpenHour time rotates between 8:00pm EST (odd months) and 1:00pm EST (even months)! See OpenHour schedule below for times and topics. The event is held right from this page, so join us here for the event!


OpenHour Schedule:

June 6th, 1pm Eastern Time /12pm Central Time: Exploring Proof

Public Lab’s June OpenHour will explore concepts of proof, likelihood, and evidence in math, science, and law.

We will hear from three community researchers and three environmental lawyers on specific case studies with legal applications of community-collected environmental data. Noelle Francois will discuss how HeatSeekNYC’s internet-of-things sensor approach to slumlord accountability is faring in NYC’s Municipal Housing Court. Scott Eustis will recount how an oblique kite photo of a conical pile of coal dust met the legal definition of “ongoing pollution” bringing about a $75,000 fine to United Bulk Terminal on the Mississippi River. Jackie Creedon will discuss the role of air samples collected with GCMs bucket in what has become the 2nd largest victory ever under the Clean Air Act (Tonawanda Coke). Each of the three lawyers -- Aaron Mango, Chris Nidel, and Edan Rotenberg -- will share lessons learned from pursuing environmental cases in both civil and criminal court.



Can't wait for a OpenHour? Request a Live Call!

Live Calls are a great way to connect with fellow Public Labbers on projects and ideas that fall outside the OpenHour times and topic schedule. They are designed to help you connect with fellow Public Labbers to brainstorm, share ideas and move forward on projects. These calls will be open to the Public Lab community and access information will be posted on the OpenHour Page.

Request a Live Call!


Past OpenHours

May 2nd: Public Lab's research culture

Join us for a discussion on quality, navigability, and onboarding to highlight the following points and more:

  • organizing content
  • refereeing content
  • standardizing documentation
  • collaborating rigorously
  • onboarding new researchers

Liz will facilitate this call. We can take notes here: https://pad.publiclab.org/p/research-documentation.

  • We'll start with a round of intros from people who are in the googleHangout or watching / typing in on chat
  • We'll choose a notetaker
  • We'll go around to give each person time to express a single, concise observation / sticking point they have encountered working in an open, distributed format. Maybe something about where to start, how to continue, find, or bring projects to resolution.
  • ...We may do a second round of short observations! Continue to take notes.
  • Once these experiences are written down, we'll see if there is any clustering. Maybe we have some emerging "problem definitions"
  • Now is a good time to add in points of reference on practices that have been working well either in PL or from anywhere to illuminate our discussion.
  • Well-equipped with this context, we can explore some of the current improvements happening to PL's collaborative infrastructure, and also think about more ideas

Here are some background references to where this conversation has been happening, and some resources that have recently been created:

April 4th: Open Access to Environmental Data

Check out this OpenHour on what environmental data is available and accessible for everyone to use! Learn about changes coming to data owned by government and universities, hear from people developing tools to sort data and learn about opening data!

Links shared Groups encouraging collaboration on open data:

Other links shared:

March 7th: Soil and Soil Testing

Interested in learning about tools related to soil and sampling? Looking to find out what can be measured in soil? Check it out::

Links shared:

February 1st: Landfills: Mapping and Monitoring!

Links shared:

January 28th: Live Call on QGIS

Links shared during this event:

January 11th: Reflections on the Climate Conference (COP21)

This OpenHour we hear reflections from people who were at COP21. What did we learned? what surprised, rejuvenated, disappointed or inspired those who were there.


EcoFys Reference to "Carbon Bomb" Industrial Projects

December 7th The Oil Testing Kit!

Interested in learning what's been going on with the Public Lab Oil Testing Kit? This OpenHour we talk about the Beta program,, kit development and what's in store for the future of this tool!

November 2nd: Gearing up for the Barnraising

Coming to the Barnraising?

Tuesday October 20th, Live Call: Calibration and Characterization of DIY ​Instrumentation

Background: ​Those of us who've been interested in building our own ​devices for ​performing environmental measurements have ​struggled with questions like:

  • How might we check to see whether we're actually measuring what we hope we're measuring? (E.g. -- is our air quality sensor really working?)
  • What sorts of equipment / approaches / methods are 'good enough' to answer (or raise) the questions we're hoping to address?
  • What does 'good enough' mean for various audiences (our community; a journalist; a government agency) and purposes (decisions about personal health; triggering an investigation; filing a lawsuit)?

Speaker Bio: Pete Marchetto is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the​ ​Cornell Soil and Water Lab, and is soon to be an Assistant​ ​Professor in Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering at the​ ​University of Minnesota. His research revolves around finding​ ​new, better, and less expensive ways of making instrumentation​ ​for those in the organismal​ ​and environmental biological fields, as​ ​well as the earth sciences.​ ​More information and contact information can be found at:​ ​http://about.me/pete.marchetto

Thursday October 8th, Live Call

As a follow-up to the September Open Hour "Transparency in Environmental Policy and Science", we are having a small discussion on transparency in environmental policy and science and its surprising application in the Secret Science Reform Act of 2015

Daniel Sarewitz will be joining us, please read his piece in Nature as a preview. Philip Silva, Public Lab organizer, will also be joining us to bring his perspectives on science and politics.

Monday, October 5th: Formaldehyde and the Plant Remediation Experiment

Formaldehyde "is the most common and most toxicologically understood indoor air pollutant," it's just about everywhere. But beyond thinking about it, what if there was something we could do about it? A this OpenHour we'll be talking about Public Lab's new Where We Breathe project and discussing how you can build a plant remediation experiment for about $20 - no soldering or microchips needed! The plants that we are going to be experimenting with have been lab-tested by NASA for cleaning air in space stations.

In this call we were joined by :

  • Nick Shapiro Public Lab's Open Air Fellow and lead researcher on Public Lab's "Where We Breathe" indoor air quality monitoring and mitigation project, and
  • Gretchen Gehrke: Data Ambassador with Public Lab and chemistry translator extraordinaire!

Wednesday, September 9th: "Transparency in Environmental Policy and Science."

Environmental Science and Policy affects everyone, yet people can find themselves in situations where the language used is unclear, text heavy or full of jargon. In this OpenHour we will explore this issue, and how people tried to address it.

During this OpenHour we were joined by:

  • Mark Meisner, Executive Director of International Environmental Communications Association,
  • Catherine D'Ignazio, a Public Lab organizer who works with MIT Media Lab and Civic Media & Data Visualization Department at Emerson College.

Links people shared during OpenHour

Resources people shared:

Monday, August 3rd, Mapping in the Middle of it!

There are some awesome projects circling around Public Lab that have really taken low cost aerial mapping to some interesting and challenging places. We're joined by:
- Ann Chen Fulbright scholar who, with National Geographic, has been working on mapping pipeline proposals with indigenous communities in Alberta and British Columbia,
- Claudia Martinez Mansell bringing the refugee camps in Lebanon to the public eye through mapping, and
- Laura Chipley who's embarking on a project in August to map mountain top removal sites. Check it out below!:

Monday, July 6th: Open Air Projects

Looking for updates on Dust Monitoring Projects? These projects fall under the Public Lab Open Air Initiative! Join us here to learn more about these projects, meet some of the makers and learn how you can get involved!

Links Shared:
Article from Willie Shubert
Speck time: https://www.specksensor.com/
Link from Jeff: http://www.ccontrols.com/tech/bacnet.htm
Public Lab DustDuino Wiki
DustDuino web page
Willie’s Git Hub page on Open dust map
https://github.com/opendustmap
CMU spec repository and for non-commercial use
Albert’s Page on CO
Soap Bubble video
Open Pipe Kit
Bacon Danger

Monday June 1st: Public Lab Web Development behind the code

Find yourself wondering how web development in our open source community works? Interested in learning who does this work, how it's done and how to get involved? Meet the people who work so hard behind the code in Public Lab!

Links shared during the call:
- http://publiclab.org/wiki/developers
- https://github.com/publiclab/plots2
- https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/plots-dev
- http://publiclab.org/tag/web-wg
- http://publiclab.org/wiki/contributing-to-public-lab-software
- http://elm-lang.org/Elm.elm
- https://github.com/elm-lang/projects
- http://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-29-2015/openaerialmap-open-imagery-network-public-lab-s-mapknitter
- http://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-29-2015/openaerialmap-open-imagery-network-public-lab-s-mapknitter

Monday May 4th: Public Lab's 5 year anniversary party!

Monday, April 6: Learning

On Public Lab's 5th Anniversary, we had a roundtable discussion on peer-to-peer learning. Telling stories of times when we exchanged concepts, skills, and attitudes, we then move on to tackle topics like expertise, jargon, the role of social bonds (online and offline), and the type of resources that support learning. Cindy Regalado, Beryl Thurman, Bronwen Densmore, Chris Fastie, and Ned Horning join us contributing in site and ideas.

Monday, March 2nd: Engaging in "C" Science

What do people mean when they refer to citizen, civic or community science? Who is it for? How do people collaborate, stay involved, and push towards outcomes? What makes a successful program and what are things to look out for?

In this exciting OpenHour we were joined by:
Julie Vastine: Director of the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring, based out of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1986, ALLARM provides scientific and programmatic assistance to Pennsylvania and New York communities interested in using science as a tool to investigate stream health.
Jessica Hendricks: Program Manager at Global Community Monitor, an organization that works internationally to train and support communities in the use of environmental monitoring tools to understand the impact of fossil fuel industry pollution on their health and the environment.
Tim Vargo: Manager of Research & Citizen Science at the Urban Ecology Center. The Urban Ecology Center's Citizen Science Program aims to serve as a meaningful bridge between academic research and the community-at-large, enabling collaboration, and creating a more engaged, knowledgeable and ecologically literate citizenry.

Resources shared during the call include:
* Refer to the Citizen Science Association
* Cornell Lab of Ornithology
* www.usawaterquality.org/volunteer for water quality monitoring resources

February 2nd 2015: Lending Libraries

Links and references shared for the event: * http://www.stl.septl.org/TL/ourtools.php * http://timebanks.org/

January 2015: ENERGY!

Interested in oil/fracking/pipelines/pet coke issues? This is the OpenHour for you!

Links shared durring OpenHour: * https://docs.google.com/document/d/14OEBr3btvkn8KzZyO5t-LFLbLbMXgGFL3v0W51nNp70/edit
* http://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/4-9-2012/bohemia-spillway-kite-photos * http://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/07-29-2014/global-community-monitor-work-on-silica-dust-from-coal-terminals-in-seward-ak
* http://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/06-03-2013/notes-on-use-of-the-first-amendment-in-the-united-states-for-communicative-photography
* http://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/05-28-2013/kite-photos-of-ongoing-coal-pollution-in-plaquemines-parish-la

Chicago Project Pages: * http://publiclab.org/notes/Holden/03-11-2014/estimating-volume-and-weight-of-petroleum-waste-piles-in-southeast-chicago
* http://publiclab.org/notes/Holden/03-21-2014/directing-a-successful-balloon-mapping-community-workshop

Monday December 1st at 1:00pm EST: "Public Lab: A year in review and what's coming next."

November 18th, the Water Hackathon in New Orleans

Missed the event? See it here!

Speakers away from the computer were hard to hear so here are some notes from the meeting.

November 3rd at 8:00pm EST: Gearing up for the Barnraising!

October 6th: Events and Event Hosting

Missed the event? See it here!

Guest speakers included: * Jen Hudon, Public Lab event extraordinaire!
* Katie Gradowski, Parts and Crafts, kids at events "expert"!
* Danielle Kraus, Propeller event pro!

September 1: Open Topic Session

Missed the event? See it here!

August 4: Thermal Imaging

Missed the event? See it here!

Call guests included: Lela Prashad, Ned Horning and Zenon Tech-Czarny
Links that were shared:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_pollution#Ecological_effects
* http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceTemperature
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Nuclear_Generating_Station#Environmental_Impacts_on_Cape_Cod_Bay
* http://publiclab.org/wiki/cape-cod-bay-watch-landsat-tutorial-notes-7-14-14
* http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2013/07/05/20324-pilgrim-nuclear-could-stop-killing-wildlife-installing-closed-cycle-cooling
* http://publiclab.org/tag/thermal-fishing-bob
* http://publiclab.org/notes/donblair/07-11-2014/simple-555-conductivity-meter

JULY 28: Open Air: air pollutants and air quality monitoring tools

Missed the event? See it here!

Call guests included:

JULY 21: Water Contaminants and Detection

Missed the event? See it here!

Water Contaminants and ways to detect them with guest speakers:

JULY 14: Spectral Analysis

Missed the event? See it here!

Spectral Analysis, How can it be used? And where can the science of spectrometry take us in the future? We will be joined by:

  • Jeff Warren, Public Lab Research Coordinator, who will be discussing spectrometry, and its applications for oil sampling.
  • Amy Soyka who will discuss color theory, and her project to testing dust and water samples from the Latrobe valley following a mine fire!

JULY 7: Near Infrared Photography

Missed the event? See it here!

Near-Infrared Imaging This week on OpenHour we discussed Near-Infrared Imaging and infragram.org!
Ned Horning and Dorn Cox also joined covering topics of:

  • The science and technology behind NIR,
  • Examples of it in use, and
  • Where this technology could head in the future!

JUNE 30: Aerial Mapping

Missed the event? See it here!

Aerial mapping and new collaborative map developments! Learn about aerial photography and mapknitting. Hear about a new software development and ways use maps to tell stories through text, images, multimedia and annotations. See community case studies that apply these tools to projects, and help shape the future of mapmaking in your community!

During this OpenHour we heard from:

To learn about other types of events, see publiclab.org/events