Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

The We are Water team, inspiring awareness and change in desert Southwest

Profiles

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Headshot of Brigitta Rongstad
Headshot of Anne Gold
Headshot of Megan Littrell
Headshot of Christine Okochi
Headshot of Kathryn Boyd
Headshot of Ami Nacu-Schmidt
Headshot of Daniela Pennycook
Headshot of Ethan Knight
People
Brigitta Rongstad Strong, Anne Gold, Megan Littrell, Christine Okochi, Katie Boyd, Annamarie Schaecher, Ami Nacu-Schmidt, Daniela Pennycook, Benét Duncan, Ethan Knight, Claire Ratcliffe Adams (Space Science Institute), Brooks Mitchell (Space Science Institute), Dillon Connelly (Space Science Institute), Noah Newman (CSU, CoCoRaHS), Nancy Maryboy (Indigenous Education Institute), David Begay (Indigenous Education Institute), Shelly Valdez (Native Pathways), Jill Stein (Reimagine Evaluation), Tamara Grybko (Native Pathways, Reimagine Evaluation), Tina Meiners (Montrose Library)
Year Awarded
2023
Type
CO-LABS / Governors Award
Affiliation
CEEE, WWA
Geography
State of Colorado

Pathfinding Partnerships Award — For research that engaged four or more distinct research entities in Colorado (with at least two being federally-funded labs) whose results leveraged the resources and strengths among partnering organizations – and demonstrate the power of collaboration.

We are Water project

Communities in the US Southwest are increasingly experiencing disruptions from climate change, including drought, wildfire, and other extremes. A CIRES education-focused research team saw an opportunity to build community resilience to those impacts by creating spaces where communities and individuals could engage with these topics and learn from each other. The resulting project, We Are Water, pulled together a diverse array of partners in the desert Southwest, including Indigenous education organizations, local libraries, and climate scientists. These partners collaborated deeply to create—and then study the impact of—water exhibits, storytelling sessions, lessons, book clubs, and other community activities. Importantly, many of these activities were conducted in English, Spanish, and Navajo (and where possible Ute). This collaborative work has not only inspired community engagement around issues of water, including drought, it has also resulted in measurable changes in participants’ interest, awareness, and respect for multiple ways of knowing about water. Program developers learned how to center the expertise and lived experiences of all collaborators, which required more thoughtful work. The result was a truly thoughtful and inclusive exhibit and body of work that is already inspiring more thoughtful, deliberate, and high-impact community-research partnerships.

​Key partners include the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, which hosts the CU Boulder-NOAA cooperative agreement; Western Water Assessment, a NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnership (CAP) program based at CIRES in CU Boulder; Colorado Libraries: Ignacio Community Library, Montrose Regional Library, Pine River Library, other libraries in the Four Corners region, and the Colorado State Library, part of the state’s Department of Education; Indigenous Education Institute, Native Pathways, and Reimagine Research Group. These Indigenous organizations are based in Washington, New Mexico, and Oregon, not Colorado. However, they are national in scope and have impact in the state and the region, and both are critical partners to the success of the We Are Water program. CoCoRaHS, the NOAA-funded Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, is a program of the Colorado Climate Center, whose community-collected weather data are used by the NOAA National Weather Service in forecasting, and the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO.

Learn more from CO-Labs: https://www.2023govawards.com/winners