This page collects some basic introduction and guidance to using the Public Lab website. There are many ways to use the site, but this page focuses on supporting newcomers.

Purpose

The Public Lab website is being continuously refined, but it's purpose is to support a diverse range of people to exchange knowledge about environmental issues that affect people, and collaborate on ways of monitoring them, organizing around them, and supporting one another in these activities.

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Organization

The website is organized into several areas, including:

• Questions and Answers - organized by topic
• Methods - approaches to monitoring, including those under development
• the Blog - stories across our network
• the Dashboard -

Questions and Answers

All questions are collected on PublicLab.org/questions, and also displayed by topic across many parts of the site. There are no "bad" questions -- if you don't understand something, or can't find something, please ask! Newcomers have a unique ability to see things that have been overlooked, so we need your help to ask these kinds of questions.

Methods

This word means different things to different people, but our Methods page collects many different approaches to monitoring environmental problems, from off-the-shelf commercial tools to in-progress Do-It-Yourself techniques, to community organizing and advocacy tactics.

It's not a comprehensive list, so please ask a question if you can think of one you want to see on there, or have related resources to share!

Blog

The Public Lab Blog is a place where we share stories from across our networks and communities -- a place to stay updated as well as to remember the people and communities working every day to drive all of these efforts forward. See our main Blog page to learn more and to submit an article.

Dashboard

(coming soon)

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Topic pages

(coming soon)

Profiles

(coming soon)

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Questions

If you have questions about the website, please ask here!