Each summer since 2017, NOAA has funded CAPA Heat Watch to support communities in mapping their urban heat islands (UHI).
CAPA Strategies has developed a process to help cities plan and execute a volunteer-based community science field campaign that builds upon local partnerships, engages residents in a scientific study to map and understand how heat is distributed in their communities.
These community science field campaigns are an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about the many impacts of extreme heat and the factors that may affect the uneven distribution of heat throughout a community. It is also an opportunity to teach aspiring young scientists about how scientific field campaigns are conducted, consists of volunteers learning about urban heat in a training session, attaching sensors to their vehicles, and driving pre-mapped transects through their cities to collect temperature and humidity data that is linked to GPS coordinates.
Communities interested in applying to run a campaign with NOAA support are encouraged to reach out to many potential partners/organizations as soon as possible to build a network for organizing volunteers and for identifying uses for the resulting datasets and products from the campaigns
Watch the site in the late fall for applications to participate in this community science project for the following summer.
