Urban Aerobiome Microclimates Workshop with the Fort Green Park Conservancy Green Team
The Hénaff Lab’s Aerobiome Team was thrilled to be invited back for the third year as guest collaborators in the Fort Greene Park Conservancy’s Green Team Program. For the past four years, the Green Team Program has provided a unique, hands-on “environmental education and work opportunity for a diverse group of young people ages 14 to 19.” Over the course of the eight-month program, Green Team cohort members “spend their time learning how to mitigate—and potentially resolve—the environmental harms and public health risks to Fort Greene Park.”
In this year’s workshop with the Aerobiome Team, we discussed the significance of airborne microbes in shaping our environment and their potential impact on public health and environmental justice. To illustrate these points, the cohort received a custom notebook and field map that explained urban aerobiome microclimates, offered reflective questions about its components and influence, and provided directions for the hands-on activity: EXTRACTING SOIL MICROBIAL DNA USING HOUSEHOLD ITEMS! It was an exciting afternoon for all!
Just as human society, microbes thrive in diverse communities. New this year, the Aerobiome Team provided tools for the Green Team to continue exploring how different microbial communities interact beyond this workshop. These tools included Winogradsky Columns made from 50mL tubes and soil from the park, a custom logbook to record weekly observations of their columns, and FoldScope Paper Microscopes. The Aerobiome Team did this because, if there’s one useful skill that science teaches us, it is to be curious about the world around us and to record our observations.
