Article | Summer 2005
Spotlight on Seed Grants
Seed Grants Program
ISERP's seed grant program is intended to support the initial stages of new social science projects with a special emphasis on innovative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative research. We particularly seek high-risk, high-return research, including work that develops new methods, applies theories or methods to new substantive areas, or translates between previously unrelated theoretical perspectives. Seed grants are awarded twice a year. Deadlines for proposals are October 15 and May 1.
Green Roofs, Cool City
Residents of the South Bronx will no longer have to trek north to stroll through a meadow. A new roof design for the historic American Banknote Building in the largely industrial Hunt's Point section of the Bronx will feature green building technology that includes a rooftop garden.
Plans for the redesign were unveiled at the Green Roof, Cool City conference, held on March 3 at the New York Botanical Garden. Researchers from Columbia joined city officials, architects, urban planners, building managers, and members of the local community to discuss urban pollution and ways to mitigate its effects.
The rooftop meadow on the American Banknote Building (Hunt's Point, South Bronx)
by Kathleen Bakewell, HM White Site Architects
The conference hinged on research initiated by the ISERP seed funded Cool City Project. The project, led by Elliott Sclar (GSAPP), Patrick Kinney (Environmental Health Science), and Joyce Rosenthal (Urban Planning, GSAPP), assesses ways to combat urban pollution, particularly the phenomenon known as urban heat island effect.
Caused by an abundance of dark surfaces, materials that absorb heat from the sun, and a lack of vegetation, urban heat islands raise the temperature from 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than surrounding rural areas. This increases the use of air conditioning and electricity and raises pollution levels.
Of particular interest to Cool City is the study of cooling technologies that conserve peak-load electricity generation and improve air quality. Since its inception in 2001, the project has supported research on New York City's urban heat island effect, evaluated mitigation techniques through pilot cool and green rooftop demonstration projects, and assessed the benefits of city-wide adoption of community-based cooling strategies, such as living roofs, street trees, and cooler pavements. The investigators conclude that the conversion of rooftops from absorptive manmade surfaces to green rooftops would reduce heat stress and pollution, provide health benefits, and save money.
At the conference, Majora Carter, executive director of the Sustainable South Bronx (SSB), a community organization dedicated to environmental justice, introduced the South Bronx Green Roofs Demonstration Project (GDP). The American Banknote Building's new roof is a prototype and control site for future research efforts by GDP. The GDP team, led by Majora Carter, Columbia's Joyce Rosenthal, and Kathleen Bakewell of HM White Site Architects, was formed in 2002, merging community activism, landscape architecture, and scientific and policy research. Working with support from electric utility Con Edison and roofing material manufacturers Carlisle Syntec Systems and Coastal Specified Products, the American Banknote building roof project will offer innovative, green roof design as a foundation for promoting awareness, practical knowledge, energy savings, and environmental improvements. The rooftop meadow will be completed in August.
Cool City has supported the burgeoning green roof initiative in New York City by researching the heat island effect, evaluating the energy and environmental impacts of the use of cool and green roof technologies in the city, and making research results publicly available.
Co-investigators of the project are now completing research for the New York Climate & Health Project, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-funded interdisciplinary study of the potential impacts on air quality and human health from changing climate and land use in the NYC metropolitan area during the next eighty years. The results of this Columbia-based research will provide better tools for assessing the regional and local impacts of climate change on air quality and public health in cities across the nation.
Education in Post-Conflict Afghanistan
Does education protect children from exploitation during and just after conflict? Does access to education programs make it less likely that children will be affected by violence or recruited for various forms of exploitation? International donor agencies are increasingly developing education services during humanitarian emergencies and early reconstruction based on these assumptions. However, there are very few empirical studies that show that education during and after conflict actually protects children and improves their future prospects. An ISERP-funded pilot study conducted by Dana Burde, Neil Boothby, and Jack Snyder seeks to address this gap in knowledge. The study aims to better understand the impact of early reconstruction education programs in Afghanistan on child welfare and life chances.
A market in Afghanistan
by Roozbeh Shirazi
Dana Burde, who has been a practitioner in developing countries for over 15 years, traveled to Afghanistan in March 2005 to conduct preliminary research for the study. During her two week stay, she met with potential NGO partners, visited schools, and gained a better sense of the state of education in the country. She and co-PIs Jack Snyder, a renowned international relations scholar, and Neil Boothby, an expert on reintegration of child soldiers and on ways to address psychosocial trauma that children sustain during war, represent a dynamic partnership. Burde and Boothby both have extensive experience working with relief organizations on education programs and on programs designed to protect children.
Post-conflict environments present enormous challenges to educators, as social services like education often dissolve in the wake of war. When accessible, however, education can serve a dual purpose. While anecdotal evidence shows that structured education programs can protect children, there are also reports that schools can actually increase the risk of children experiencing mistreatment, including abuse, neglect, violence, discrimination, and early marriage. In response, humanitarian agencies have begun to focus efforts on developing education services that provide protection during and after conflict and invest in future human resources. Such an investment may help create more lasting stability, promote tolerance, and prevent the "backward" development so common to chronic conflicts. Providing education during and after conflict is no longer seen solely as a charitable endeavor to assist troubled populations, many now consider it essential to promoting human security.
With the surge of foreign aid to Afghanistan following the end of the recent bombing campaigns, the country now contains a plethora of education programs and is an apt location to test the link between education and protection. "We also selected Afghanistan because it has experienced on-going conflict for several generations, and because children continue to encounter significant risk of exposure to violence and exploitation in the region," Burde explains.
Project investigators hypothesize that children enrolled in good education programs are less likely to be the victims of exploitation or perpetrators of violence. From their analyses, Burde, Boothby, and Snyder also hope to garner a better understanding of how education impacts a sense of tolerance towards others, feelings of safety, decision-making, and perceptions of education and work. The pilot study will be launched during fall 2005.
Dana Burde is Associate Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Program on Forced Migration. Neil Boothby is Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health, Director of the Children in Crisis: High Impact Programs, and Associate Clinical Professor of Population and Family Health. Jack Snyder is the Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations in the political science department and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.
See Also
- Seed Grant Program
- Seed grant: The Cool City Project: NYC Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategies
- Seed grant: Protecting Children from War and Ensuring their Prospects for the Future: Educating in the Context of Crisis and Transition
- Press release: Columbia Research Crucial to "Green Roofs, Cool City" Conference
