HOST:  There is a learner guide for today's session -- we encourage folks to use to extend your learning on the topic.
It's a tool for you to take after the webinar to perhaps bring to your team, maybe with your partners, it can be customized so you have specific steps or aspects of this work you'd like to explore with others, you can customize that guide and make it yourself, but we want to provide you with a way to take some next steps in this important work, so be sure to check out the learner guide.
And I'm going to go ahead and welcome my colleague, Steph Harmon, who is here to kick off today's session.
Welcome, Steph, and thank you so much for being here.
>> STEPH:  Thank you, J.P.  I am really happy to be here.
This webinar is part of a national project called "Building Resilient Communities."
This is to empower library staff and our partnerships that can affect social equity and sustainability.
I am trying to advance to the next slide.
Thank you very much.
Awesome.
That's helpful.
Over the last year, this project has brought together professionals from public libraries with folks from other sectors.
These are policymakers, STEM educators, funding partners, and people working at scientific agencies, all focused on building awareness and understanding of how environmental changes affect community health, well-being, and social equity.
This webinar is going to highlight a few practical examples, showing how libraries are taking steps toward climate action that alliance  lines with their local areas, getting the communities ready for these.
Whether you're hosting conversations, sharing trusted information, or sharing hands-on STEM activities, building in strength and resilience to keep the community strong and adaptable for whatever comes next.
I'm joined today by some really fantastic presenters.
Our first presenter, Rae, Rae Ostman is from Arizona State University.
She's going to talk about how she's been working with community partnerships that encourage team to engage -- 
people to engage in STEM and how libraries work in this broader ecosystem.
Our second set of presenters are a good example of the kind of partnerships we're working with.
Vivienne Byrd from Los Angeles Public Library and Gabriel Varela from climate Resolve are going to be talking about the successes and challenges they've had with building and sustaining partnerships.
And finally, Sarah Weatherby from East Flagstaff Community Library in Arizona will show us how she partnered with her city's sustainability office to address climate change and the latest action and dialogue to engage the community and she'll worked and what they learned and the climate resilience project.
We hope today will offer practical ideas and inspiration, whether you're just starting out or ready to take the next step in working with your local partners to build resilient and sustainable communities.
So take it away, Rae!
>> RAE:  Thank you, Steph, and it's great to be here with all of you.
My name is Rae Ostman, and I'm co-director of the center for innovation and informal STEM learning at Arizona State University and we work with communities, libraries, children centers, community organizations.
So it's great to join you.
I'm going to be talking today about STEM learning ecosystems and particularly how these partnerships work across communities can take climate action and help built resilient communities.
So just to give you an overview, I'm going to first introduce STEM learning ecosystems as a way for our communities to support STEM learning and engagement.
Then I'm going to share an example of how one ecosystem is encouraging climate action and I'll share resources and some opportunities to learn more about this approach.
This project is called SciAct STEM Ecosystems, it's a part of the NASA Science Activation program, and they are arctic, Alaska, rural and innovation that work in Arizona, and the northeast, and Smoky Mountain STEM Collaborative in North Carolina.
And folks in all of these areas, we did an inquiry where we really were looking at using a STEM ecosystem lens to think about building partnerships across the community and doing authentic STEM engagement on topics like climate change and resilience.
And through this work together we co-produced three key ideas and relate to community partnerships to belonging and broadening participation in STEM and what authentic STEM learning means to uses and our projects, so I'll share those with you.
Quickly, I want to go over the idea of the STEM ecosystem, use the concept of a natural ecosystem to describe how organizations, projects, and people can work together toward the common goal of supporting STEM learning or learning about other topics across dhir community.
-- their community.
So this shows a generalized idea and highlights many of the different people and organizations who might participate in STEM learning.
And libraries are important partners in many, if not all, learning ecosystems.
And many ecosystems supported learners as they engage with STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, in different places and different points of time.
By being intentional, the communicating and coordinating with other organizations, the partners in the ecosystems can point learners to other pathways, share resources, and work within the community.
And so community really is the keyword for the first of our key ideas from this project.
And we say that STEM learning ecosystems are built and sustained through intentional practices.
They thrive through reciprocal relationships and grounded in geographic and cultural context.
So this is the working definition for STEM learning ecosystems.
Our second key idea, we like to use the keyword of belonging.
And ecosystems often have the goal of broadening participation, including more people, by cultivating genuine relationships among organizations, a transparent culture, sharing programming and resources and prioritizing diversity, equity, accessibility, inclusion, and belonging.
And finally, the third key idea that we saw across this study of four different learning and ecosystems is around engagement and we were curious about authentic STEM engagement.
And so we defined that as starting by understanding what's relevant to learners in communities and then creating connections to STEM content through active learning experiences.
I'm going to break that one down a little bit more.
So we really saw three facets or three dimensions of this, authentic STEM engagement and the first was relevance, and that's connecting to the learners' identity and culture that promotes this sense of belonging and community that's so important and fosters inclusion.
The second dimension for our project was STEM content and that included community observations as well as a whole range of expert perspectives.
And finally, the experience design.
We really value active learning, opportunities that encourage dialogue and build on community strengths.
And libraries, I think, are just a natural partner in learning ecosystems.
In terms of communities, libraries are trusted spaces that provide key community services.
In terms of belonging, libraries foster relationships and share resources across the community, and engagement, libraries offer programming and offer opportunities to engage and learn.
So I want to give one example of climate action from the four projects that we looked at and I'm going to share from learning Ecosystems Northwest, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute by LENI for short, but they have librarians highlighted in this diagram representing some of the key partners in their ecosystems because libraries along with others are the key partners that make all of this happen.
So the goals of LENI, Learning Ecosystems Northeast, empower the next generations  those that will take climate action, and data literacy that young people will need to tackle the challenges ahead and this is a partnership across many states in the northeast and connects many local ecosystems to communities of practice and that allows perhaps a librarian at a small library in one place to connect with another librarian in another place and learn and share from each other.
So the climate action teaches informal educators, librarians, also to work together to develop programs that are related to local impacts of climate change, that feature NASA data and take meaningful action and extend learning opportunities and pathways for young people in the particular area and a really nice way that they do this is by focusing on local climate stories as the basis for their learning experiences.
So, for example, one key story has been the warming of the Gulf of Maine and how that is changing all sorts of things about the natural ecosystem as well as the economy in the region.
Lobster fishing is shown in this picture here.
And finally, I just want to close by sharing with you some places that you can learning a little bit more and get some more information.
The first that we have more information about this project in particular on NISEnet.org and you'll find other resources as well, but is it you go to STEM learning ecosystems on our website, that will get you to websites, conversation guides, activities, many other resources.
And the second thing that I just want to share here is there's a national network of learning ecosystems, and they have a community of practice.
They offer in-person convenings, online workshops, to learn more about ecosystems.
Maybe find out if there's one near you that you're not even aware of.
And I just want to close by thanking all my colleagues that I've worked with, including our investigators, our evaluators, and the many practitioners and experts and community members that are part of our four ecosystems and also thanking NASA as our core partner for this project.
Thank you so much.
>> JENNIFER:  Thank you, I love the data literacy and climate literacy because I have been hearing more about data literacy so what a great time to be able to have that effort combined.
So really wonderful work.
Thank you so much.
I didn't see any questions come through.
If folks have questions for Rae or any of the presenters, feel free to type those in to chat and we'll be sure to touch base with Rae on any of those questions at the end.
So thank you so much.
All right.
Well, let's go ahead and shift on over to Vivienne, who is going to transition us to hear about the great work they're doing in Los Angeles.
Welcome.
>> VIVIENNE:  Thank you, Rae, and thank you, Jennifer.
I'm Vivienne Byrd, Los Angeles Public Library, and I'm going to shift gears a little bit to share with you how the Los Angeles Public Library builds climate action through the Neighborhood Science Initiative.
So our Neighborhood Science Initiative is the LA public version of citizens for participatory science enabling them to distribute directly to scientific research that affects their lives and turns them into impacts, impactful actions, addressing real world issues, to public health.
Since 2018 we have been offering a number of programs to empower the participants to learn about issues, by affecting their communities and motivating them to participate to participatory science so they can have a voice, to inform solutions and mitigation measures.
Most of these programs will not be possible without partnerships.
By collaborating at federal, state, and local levels, we are not only enhancing our programs but deepening the community's concerns to our quality of life.
Successful partnerships can give public libraries access to more funding and resources, more partners, scientific expertise, amplify program efforts, recruit and sustain participants and ensure equity and accessibility.
However, it's not an easy task.
We hit many roadblocks along the way and some of the key challenges that were there and still there are, for example, lack of recognition from science communities.
This is possibly due to the traditional -- the continue traditional view of libraries as just a repository of books rather than active science participators.
Many have a view of libraries and librarians, not seeing them as capable scientific programs or projects.
There often has been a gap in public awareness with libraries supporting activities or initiatives, and resources, and resources, limitations, such as funding, time, staffing, and alignment of diverse goals and scientific partners and also communities that we're starting, it can be challenging at times.
And equity and accessibility, such as physical accessibility, language differences, and digital literacy to include participation and with projects, it's been addressed, but it used to be more in English, and also for us, we're serving a lot of inner city residents and getting our partners to tailor their content who are living in the inner city with no access to green spaces is another challenge.
So here are some tactics that I have been applying to overcome traditional hurdles, once of which is to share the success stories to attract partnerships, with as many as I can, presenting at conferences in both sized communities, participating at events, attending events hosted by potential partners, and the way we have our goals, sustaining plan that really allows to finding more partners or getting connected to other partners.
Building networks, starting local, with schools, community groups, universities, local businesses.
And I also chat with our program attendees and that's how I find a lot of our subject-matter expertexpertise in our local community.
I spend a lot of time training our library staff to boost up their scientific literacy by working with our partners and that plays a big piece for librarians to lead these programs at their branches and get more buy-in, actively communicate and coordinate with the clients, make sure you're on the same page with shared goals and update them with any changes in the organization or schedule of any objectives.
Always strive for equity and accessibility, addressing physical, linguistic barriers.
And now, I'm going to highlight the partnerships.
The mosquito habitat mapper is one of our programs.
It is -- it turns our library into places where the community comes together in action.
Globe has connected our efforts to global science, empower our community to spot and reduce mosquito breeding sites, lowering disease risk, learning about diseases, prevention strategies, such as using repellants and removing standing water, and find out with greater Los Angeles district to provide local information, resources, and strategy on mosquito controls, ensuring our efforts are effective and targeted, and the data set by helping navigate NASA from space and this collaboration shows how libraries can make big issues like climate change relatable to our communities.
And now, continues talking, I'm going to shift past this to Gabriel Varela from climate Resolve, our partner since 2019, to share with you about their experiences that they have encountered with L.A. Public Library.
Gabriel, please take it away.
>> GABRIEL:  Awesome.
Hi, everyone.
Hi, everyone, thank you for having me here today.
To begin with, for those of you that don't know anything about Climate Resolve, I want to give a quick introduction.
We're an organization based in Los Angeles.
What we do, we bring the conversation of climate change from the global to the local, so we do everything -- we have someone working on the climate planning to project implementation and even a little bit of policy.
Additionally, we do our best to bring together organizations to promote local solutions.
So one example, obviously, is us working with the L.A. Public Library to work with events.
So just touching a little bit on the topics and programs that we've had over the years with the public library system, we initially connected the library system, like Vivienne mentioned, a few years ago, regarding issues like extreme heat, heat island effect, building -- 
resilience within the communities that are impacted, especially through extreme heat.
And just kind of figuring out how local climate change is impacting health.
So this is especially important because we are working in the San Fernando Valley, it's northeast, it's northeast, northeast area of the City of L.A., and it's actually the area of the city that gets the hottest during the year, so you see sometimes it can get over 100 degrees there.
So we want to make sure that we're doing that work to protect folks in that area.
So a couple of successes and maybe like a little bit of a quick challenge to mention, the first thing I want to talk about is reaching local communities through the library.
You know, we're always very appreciative of local librarians and making that space for us.
We've done everything from tabling events to hosting workshops, doing presentations, and even had a -- planting tree distribution that I helped through what we call the -- 
we'll circle back to that.
The City of L.A. has -- where they look at residents, up to seven free trees, mostly shade trees that they can plant in their own home and increase resilience locally, so getting back at some point.
Other success, you know, each communities where they are and provide information on how they can stay safe at home, you know, through all of the activities, had the opportunity to connect community members to different resources and strategies, everything from roots to trees to free solar power and programs that can help residents during the hottest parts of the year.
And then just finally a challenge and kind of -- think of it as a fun challenge is figuring out how do we continue our partnership?
Things -- the program activities, do we want to create a program together, do we want to apply for funding together?
Obviously, that's not something to figure out right now, but especially now, a lot more funding is coming down from the federal government on different types of climate issues.
So kind of -- thinking about that challenge.
And so, yeah, just partnering with the public library has come really natural at Climate Resolve to reach out to folks with information about -- that's important to folks in resilience, right?
We want to increase resilience in preparation of what we know is coming.
Or what's already here, right, especially with the wildfires.
And then just kind of obviously partnering with other public libraries.
We're working with a partner, I believe, is -- in the community, very natural space where communities gather every week.
There's also an expectation that you're going to the library to learn, to find resources, so it matches what we're trying to do.
The library is like a place to cool down when it's a hot day.
A lot of people in L.A. don't have AC or running their AC gets really expensive, so they go to the library to be there and we enjoy connecting the public library with our different partners that we have, so, for example, we help connect them with an organization called [indiscernible], and that's a library right now to help collect temperature data in the Cypress area and help with that information.
So that's there as well.
So yeah, we're -- what would I like to see in a partnership with the L.A. Public Library?
So really, in my mind, it's about looking at the libraries at resilience hubs, not just cooling centers.
So how do we create spaces that are able to respond not just to extreme heat, but also other climate and natural disaster impacts, like spaces where communities naturally gather, so they play an important role when natural disaster does strike, and having climate mitigation, resources available for folks who are just coming in the library would be really great.
I'm sure there's that information there, especially for communities that are in disproportionatedisproportionately impacted areas.
Similarly, like I mentioned earlier, just working together to provide climate resilience and education programs.
I think that's really important, and as we continue to have kind of like these increase in heat numbers and wildfires and droughts, you know, it's really more important than ever to provide the information so folks know how to protect themselves.
And then finally, just, you know, how do people know about the partners, right?
Do we want to get together and apply for funding so that we can actually create these funding or bolster the programs that are already there?
It's something I've been thinking about a lot, and that's an opportunity to kind of continue to do the work we're doing because obviously, the library, we cherish the local libraries and love all the resources that they provide and I want to make sure that we continue doing that when it comes to climate change as well and protecting folks against increasing events.
And with that, I think I'll leave it to the others and just passed it on to the next person.
So thank you so much.
>> JENNIFER:  Thank you so much, Vivienne and Gabriel.
There have been some great questions coming into chat.
Someone mentioned, is this a "build it and hope they will come" things or do community partnerships express interest in neighborhood stems and science?
Somebody responded in chat but I wanted to give you an opportunity.
I know that many of you are beginning of those partnership organizations to begin this work, but any thoughts on the range of the intentional and community-led efforts around this, I would say, between Rae and Vivienne and Gabriel, do you have any more thoughts around that?
>> RAE:  I would mention, I'm so glad this question came up, particular with climate change, we know getting information on its own is not going to get people to act.
So you must be working with communities to tie all of this to their values and priorities from the very beginning.
I think it's great that point was brought up.
In the particular project I was speaking about today, I know that all four groups have been doing that in various ways and all four projects also that has included working with Indigenous and tribal communities as well.
Often incredibly hard hit by the impacts of climate change and not integrated in the same way as the other community resources, where they have their own amazing strategies for resilience that we can all learn from.
>> JENNIFER:  Excellent.
Vivienne, any other thoughts on that?
>> VIVIENNE:  I'm just going to reiterate the part that Gabriel mentioned.
You need to go out in the community and meet the community where they're at.
That's the best way to reach out to them, especially in our area, it's very inner city, the poverty rate is high and they don't have access to transportation or coming to the library.
The only way to reach them is to be there with them, to go out to their community, be it the schools, the parks, any way you can to partner with your local organizations in the outreach event, any chance you get is the way to engage them.
So that's how we've been doing it.
And I'm happy to say that our Central-southern area, most of our branch libraries are part of our branches and that has been really helping us amplifying the program efforts and getting more people to know about the climate issues and how that really ties into their daily lives.
>> JENNIFER:  That's great.
There's another, I thought it was great to hear, someone here from a medical school library.
Yay!
We want all library types.
And the question on a lot of focus on bringing younger community members into STEM to grow direct community interactions.
I know there's a lot of resources that are being shared with you.
I would say many of them would be relevant.
I think, Rae, you chimed in with some suggestions around -- was it you that said younger -- 
younger folks.
>> RAE:  Yeah, younger activities work in a whole variety of settings, including libraries.
They're on a range of STEM topics, but some do include the climate in the earth sciences as we've been sharing today.
>> JENNIFER:  Great.
And a great example of the prevalence of these issues in our lives and also shared that -- with the severe IV shortage in the U.S. that was caused by the instruction of that key production plant.
Here is an example of a current, current event that would definitely be great to bring into the conversation.
That's being shared in chat.
And also, just a reminder to -- 
I'm going to post a link into chat with a page that collects all of this, sustainability and climate action-related resources that WebJunction has been working with many partners on, so be sure to explore.
I'd say there are lots of webinars and resources there where you will hear from folks from different kinds of libraries, so if you're from a small and rural library, it might be helpful for you to see what some of those examples are as well.
So -- here's one more question, and we'll continue on.
How do you go about engaging a community properly when certain demographics within a community are resistant to the effects of climate change?
So surrounding areas have had a firsthand look at natural disasters that are not typical for this person's state, but how do you get people to understand that change is possible and the action related to that, do we just provide, inform, and resources and hope that they're looked at?
Any comments on especially when people are being impacted directly how to bring it into the conversation.
Or somebody piggybacked and said, how do you get a resistant library administration to prioritize this work and give you the time to do this work.
Any thoughts from any of you so far?
That's a big one.
>> RAE:  No, I think it really depends on each area, and I am not working in a library currently but I can say that in Arizona sometimes the concept of sustainability resonates better than climate change as a way to bring people together from all different climates, the sustainability of our communities resonates with people.
So we often use back framing for our opportunities because you want to welcome people rather than closing some of the resistant folks out.
So maybe what concepts or what ideas or what priorities are and resonate and work from that angle, that would be one suggestion.
>> JENNIFER:  Vivienne, did you have something to add to that?
>> VIVIENNE:  For us, we don't really use the word "climate change" in our program titles.
We don't keep emphasizing that concept.
We focus on that we're experiencing locally.
The extreme heat.
The wildfires.
How they affect their health.
We're pushing towards that direction, and when we do that, instead of telling them, what do you think are the causes of these, and people are the ones, the participants are the ones that say climate.
So we're not pushing that concept towards them, but I think a lot of them are aware of it and, of course, it could be different in the different communities that you serve.
Before us, in California, up in L.A., they're diverse, that, you know, the concept of climate change is fairly well perceived here.
You just have a little bit less resistance than other communities in different parts of the country.
But the key -- the key thing for us to do is just not mention the word "climate change" and I believe this actually happened to one of our branches when they brought in someone to do their tabling at a branch and I guess one of the pamphlets says, what do you know about climate change and a parent, literally, reached out to our P.R. department and said, why are you trying to indoctrinate my kid?
So we become very, very conscious about how are we going to move forward in educating people about climate actions, about climate change, about a climate change topic, really focus on what they're experiencing locally.
>> JENNIFER:  Go ahead.
>> GABRIEL:  Real quick.
I totally agree with Vivienne.
I think oftentimes it's more productive to talk about what the community is experiencing and giving them the space to voice that.
Right?
So if it comes to like a -- like everybody is being impacted by it, right, and you don't have to say it's climate change, but you can ground the conversation into what they are currently experiencing, so you can look outside.
It's 100 plus degrees and oftentimes providing the space is enough for that conversation to move forward.
Another thing I'd like to add to, making sure when you provide space, you also provide for any other needs that the community has.
For example, for us, what we've been doing at Climate Resolve, we've been putting aside funding so we can provide food, so we can provide drinks, so we can provide childcare.
So a lot of the things that might sometimes prevent someone from engaging with you, we try to think ahead and provide that so they don't have to worry about, well, I have to do this, then go back home and make dinner or where do I leave my kids if I have kids that I need to take care of, where if we have childcare there, that helps a lot there and frees up people's minds so they can actively engage in the conversation.
So I wanted to mention those little details go a long way to making sure it's a nice, productive, forward-looking conversation.
>> JENNIFER:  That's great.
That's wonderful.
And a reminder, too, the last webinar in the series in December is focused on communication, so we will dive a little bit deeper into some of that, the issues around that question.
All right.
Well, let's move on to Sarah.
I know Sarah touches on some of these questions in her presentation as well.
So Sarah, thank you so much.
Take us through your journey.
>> SARAH:  Thank you so much for the opportunity to present today.
As I said, my name is Sarah Weatherby, and I've worked as a library specialist in Flagstaff for the last ten years.
The project we are here today is one that I joined a year ago, climate initiative launched a partnership with our city's sustainability office.
How we're approaching it and what we're able to achieve.
The impacts of climate change on our environment are becoming for urgent by the day.
So -- this means working across disciplines, libraries, local governments, and community-based organizations are uniquely positioned to lead and collaborate on efforts.
We must also pursue solutions in community, partnership.
Focused on people, not just policy.
Build on existing resilience and strengths in our local communities and local action truly makes the difference and build on these actions that are already present.
And finally, you must foster data awareness, social connectedness, and trust.
Building the relationship and trust is building sustainable, long-term solutions.
So why focus on resilience and not just mitigation?
First, climate change is happening now.
It's not a distant thing, it's impacting people in our communities.
Resilience is a climate solution because it's proactive.
Part of being prepared for and minimize climate impacts by building capacity and enhancing the well-being of people.
Resilience is a great topic for local programming because resilience is inherently hyper local.
It should be community led and shaped by the unique needs of the community itself.
Finally, resilience is about community empowerment and social connectedness.
It's about increasing access to resources and services, improving people's well-being, and ultimately it's a win-win for everyone involved.
All right.
So this particular collaboration happened when my predecessor reached out to General or tega, and neither organization had any extra funding or time for this event, but they're both really passionate about the topic and managed to come up with a program.
I came in about a year ago, with a background in environmental science, it was an easy space for me to step into.
Also, libraries already provide a safe space for many of our community members so it was a perfect place to meet people where they already are.
All right.
So the framework of the program, it's not about acquiring knowledge, it's fundamentally social activity.
Our framework has the active participation and co-learning and engaging people of all ages, backgrounds, and perspectives to share knowledge and lived experience so we try to meet with people of all ages and from sharing these experiences and learning from one another, people solve problems together.
The framework emphasizes using exchange and self-reflection.
That said, I'm thrilled to be able to present the Climate Resilience Project, to come up with promote individual and community resilience to climate change in flag staff through shared discussions, working supporting existing resilience initiatives that are already happening in our area, and fostering a supportive, intergenerational community environment for people to come together and take action.
This project is a collaboration between the City of Flagstaff sustainability office and the Flagstaff city-Coconino County community library where we can learn and grow.
This program is for people of all ages and experiences and all levels of knowledge.
We focus on building resilience by fostering community connections, facilitating open conversations, about people's concerns and also hands-on learning opportunities.
Before we dive deeper into the program, I just wanted to share kind of a crucial element of the framework.
Which is the agreements.
We do this at the start of each of our sessions, and we found these agreements help facilitate an environment of trust so people can share and engage with each other, and ensure the space is in respect and mindfulness and encourages a culture of learning where we can all kind of like challenge ideas together but not ever challenge the person that's sharing the ideas.
Okay.
So our goal in this program is to build community and encouraging connections that make us stronger and more resilient through dialogue and collaborative action.
Our events are designed for participants to share their knowledge, engage in discussions, gain new experiences, reflect on practices and effectively consider solutions.
We localize climate change by emphasizing it's not just a global issue but something affecting our own community and make with completely accessible because everyone has a role in facing -- in shaping our community-based solution.
But you absolutely don't have to have a degree or work in a special area to work about climate degree.
Everyone can talk about it and have community solutions together.
Can helps us under the solutions, while giving participants the scale and knowledge and confidence to have these conversations with others.
And as learning is a continuous process of reflection and action, through dialogue we're able to create and identify practical steps forward.
We do really rely on active participation, so whether that be through people actually talking or just listening reflectively, it's really good for building trust within the community.
All right.
So our monthly events are designed to bring people together, to learn, engage in dialogue, and take action.
The first type of event we hosted is a climate conversation and these are facilitated conversations on key climate topics.
They're not lectures but rather opportunities for collaborative learning where community members can think about a current issue.
We bring on experts, but the focus is on a participant's perspective and how we can work together towards a common goal.
Through the topics we've covered including housing, carbon dioxide removal and we've partnered with Indigenous leaders, the center, staff and institutional researchers.
Now, on to my favorite, our resilience work sessions.
These sessions are all about gaining skills and putting learning into action, by supporting ongoing community resilience efforts, participants are able to engage on hands-on activities, such as watershed recovery, invasive plant workshop, emergency planning.
These experiences help people discover the capacity to create real change in their community.
So for some of these events we've done watershed cleanups, we've learned how to identify and make a plan.
We've built gardens.
We've created community spaces for sustainable food production and put fires out in the forest and under the cancer effects and we make sure we're partnering with each of the experts in these areas.
All right.
I'd like to quickly share some key successes and things we've learned along the way.
The first is absolutely to meet people where they are.
And that's where the library has come in perfectly.
We want to engage diverse interests by allowing people to participate as well and make sure we're sharing positive stories to healing the burnout and we hear a lot from our community that they feel overwhelmed, that they're unsure of how to make a difference.
But they're highlighting diverse, successful examples, both big and small, we can all come together and show that change is possible.
We also want to make sure that we establish clear guidelines, what the space is we're looking for, especially now, we want to make sure that people are avoiding politics, campaign, or promoting a specific organization.
We definitely need always make sure that the space is safe and welcoming and we've really found these agreements that we had at the start of each meeting to be really helpful and we want to be clear on why resilience is the focus so early on people wanted to talk about solutions and mitigation, things like solar panels or electric vehicles, but we find that resilience is just as important.
We also want to make sure that we're always collecting feedback and that we're creating programming around what participants want to learn about to be active with and what they're curious about learning on.
So just wrap up here, no single organization can address the complexity of climate change on its own.
Strong efforts with local partners, environmental educators are essential to crafting a holistic approach as to climate action.
Through these partnerships, libraries and organizations can create climate action toolkits, plus workshops on local strategies and offer learning opportunities.
And this applies to us too.
You don't have to be an expert.
You can design this program.
Just make sure you have the right partnerships and community insights.
And in closing, while the topic of climate change can be daunting and the challenges are significant, this collaboration gives me hope because it's demonstrating what can happen when our communities come together for a common cause.
Thank you.
>> JENNIFER:  Wonderful, Sarah, I love looking at your graphics and someone said -- there was a question around attendance and I'd love to hear from Vivienne as well.
What is attendance like at your programs and can you talk about how you had to sort of get up to?
What was your early programming like?
Were there fewer people?
Can you talk a little bit about that?
>> Sure.
So we absolutely find that our kind of discussions that we do here at the library have slightly lower attendance than the ones where we go out and do projects together.
So quite often in discussions we'll run between 10 and 30 people that come to join us, which we love.
When we get out and we do hands-on projects, we're usually seeing between 20 and sometimes 70 people.
>> JENNIFER:  Whoa!
That's very cool.
That's awesome.
>> SARAH:  Yeah.
>> JENNIFER:  That's great.
What a testament to how your project has really taken hold and you've definitely gotten the community on board as well.
Wow.
Great work.
Any thoughts on attendance and how that was for you early on?
>> VIVIENNE:  So for us, early on, the attendance was very spotty.
What we quickly noticed, we always have much better participation rate when it's in a number of communities.
That is something we noticed right away.
And that actually happens to go back and think about how we can engage the [indiscernible] 
communities.
We focus on doing things outdoors.
A lot of people don't really know they have a park within a half a mile from their home.
So we work with the city's recreation and parks, partner up on various events.
Right now, the L.A. challenge to make sure with the parks to make sure we can get them to go out to explore the local biodiversity.
For the air quality, for the air quality programs, we actually have this curriculum co-created with EPA, we were able to use that, and when we gather people from schools, we do a lot of work with the teachers and sometimes they'll bring a class in or they'll make that extra credit for people to come in and join us for programs and we'll join them around the neighborhood or meet them outside the library because we do have the concern about the libraries issues when you work with public libraries.
That is one thing I didn't mention, but we have liability issues that we have to be careful with.
So for us, the workaround, we will meet people where we want to host the event.
If we're doing this in a park, we don't say, let's meet in the park first and then go to the library.
We will give them the library meeting in the park and whoever wants to come with their family, they will come and we do the outdoor piece.
And L.A. district, right now, they're having this new resolution called climate literacy education resolution, they signed about two years ago, and so there's a huge focus on doing outdoor learning, exploring local nature places in nature, so we're working with them really closely on being a part of their curriculum.
So things started -- we have been seeing participation going up.
Same things with our circulating -- we've created multiple kits from air sensors to water quality testing to light pollution measuring.
All of these kits are available as what we call the neighborhood science branches.
So someone asking a question, like, how do you -- how do you convince a more resistant administration or branches to be part of this, to push these programs?
The way we do it is we didn't make this -- we're a central library, so our coordination has been all centrally coordinated and then we push out to the branches.
And instead of telling every branch, you have to do this many programs every year or every month or every quarter, we actually go in there and try to do a lot of meetings with them and then we meet at their like regional meetings and kind of keep on promoting the concept of this and, again, citing the success stories from other branches or the branches who are not on board yet to think about participating.
And that's one way of us engaging them.
Our administration branches, we have a branch library services, and they -- their biggest concern is how the branch is operating.
So staffing sometimes comes in -- becomes an issue, and so what we do is me being in the central coordinating offices, our department and myself will go out and support the program.
So we don't leave the library and say, you're trained, you run the program and send me pictures and reports.
I don't do that.
I go out and do as much I can.
I went to 13 different schools.
I would do two schools in one day to host events.
And our library -- capacity, they will come out and help me.
And they don't -- I'll share that with the staff, I'll share the reports and let them know which school they can reach out to for more programming.
That's another way of supporting them and let the administration know, this is something that the community wants and when they see the numbers, when they say the report, when they see the feedback from participants, there's nothing stronger than having this evidence to show them, this is something they want and we need to provide and you just wait -- when you have that, that number there, they will, they will not, and say, okay, let's give it a shot.
>> JENNIFER:  That's great.
Yeah.
Definitely lots of -- the partner needs, really, this is about partnerships and I just want to note, somebody did share in chat that they collaborate with their county water and soil conservation district, the agricultural college extension, the state department of Natural Resources and the state department of environmental services.
So again, lots of examples of the kind of folks you can engage with.
I want to encourage you to take a look at the learner guide on the event page to think more deeply about strategicically identifying your partners and how to collaborate with them.
We are just at the top of the hour.
I want to remind folks that there are two more webinars in this series and lots of other resources available.
The background papers were mentioned in chat.
There's some really great examples and resources in each of those background papers.
There's a glossary of some of the terms that we've been tossing around here.
So definitely explore the project page as well and we really hope you can join us in November and December for these next two webinars as we've talked about that final one will be focused on communication.
So definitely getting at -- how to communicate to get everybody on board.
So thank you all so much.
Thank you so much to our presenters.
Really fantastic work going on.
It's really palpable, your passion that you bring to the work as well as the impact that you're having.
So thank you so much to everyone.
A reminder that I'll send you an email later today once the recording is posted.
I'll also send you a certificate for attending and as you leave today, I'm going to send you to a short survey.
The link will also be in the email, so if you need to turn around and head back to the desk, we really appreciate your feedback.
It helps us guide our ongoing programming and we'll share that with our presenters.
If you're watching a recording of this event, you can also provide feedback at the bottom of the recording page.
So thank you all for being here.
Everyone have a great rest of your week and continue doing this important work, "Building Resilient Communities."
Thank you so much!