2025 Community Science Partners
The Center for Collaborative Heat Monitoring (CCHM) has selected eleven Community Science Partners to collect data on local heat patterns during the 2025 heat season. These data will help communities develop strategies to reduce heat-related illness and death, infrastructure damage, and other heat risks. For more information, read our press release. For information about volunteering for campaigns, contact ashton.merck@lifeandscience.org.
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Co-Leads: Groundwork Bridgeport & PT Partners
Hub: Museum of Science
Two Bridgeport-based organizations, Groundwork Bridgeport and PT Partners, are collaborating to assess urban heat in the West End/West Side neighborhood of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Groundwork Bridgeport is a community-based non-profit with the mission to bring about the sustained regeneration, improvement, and management of the physical environment, by empowering people, businesses, and organizations to promote environmental, economic, and social well-being. PT Partners is a “Leaderful Organization” that provides a replicable model for the transformation of public housing neighborhoods into community-led, asset-based, healthy communities.
Buffalo, New York
Co-Leads: University at Buffalo & Erie County
Hub: Museum of Science
This project is a partnership between faculty at University at Buffalo, Erie County’s Sustainability Office, who are working with other community groups to better understand the impacts of warming temperatures in Buffalo.
Cherokee, NC
Lead: Center for Native Health
Hub: Museum of Life and Science
The Center for Native Health supports balanced wellbeing of southeastern Native communities through the preservation and respectful application of Native knowledge to empower the people, Land, and culture. For this summer’s heat campaign, the Center will work with longtime collaborators at NC State University to conduct an indoor monitoring campaign that will build on existing air quality monitoring and connect youth with elders.
Hawai’i County (the Big Island)
Lead: Vibrant Hawai’i
Hub: Museum of Life and Science / OMSI
Vibrant Hawai’i, working closely with Hawai’i County and PacGeoS, will leverage their robust network of resilience hubs to conduct stationary, long-term monitoring on the Big Island in summer 2025, to better understand how warmer temperatures are affecting daily life in communities on the Big Island.
Memphis, Tennessee
Lead: The Works, Inc.
Hub: Museum of Life and Science
The Works, Inc. is collaborating with Shelby County and faculty from the University of Memphis to conduct a heat mapping campaign to study extreme heat in Memphis in 2025. One goal of this campaign is to better understand how heat may contribute to extreme differences in life expectancy in different parts of Memphis.
Missoula, Montana
Lead: Missoula County
Hub: Museum of Life and Science / OMSI
Building on their previous informational campaign, “Stay Cool Missoula,” Missoula County, City of Missoula, and Climate Smart Missoula are working together to conduct a heat mapping campaign to better understand how Missoulans can adapt to rising temperatures.
Moab, Utah
Lead: City of Moab
Hub: Arizona Science Center
The City of Moab Sustainability Office will work with Science Moab to conduct a heat monitoring campaign with a focus on how heat impacts the experiences of tourists and travelers who visit Moab.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Co-Leads: Hollygrove-Dixon Neighborhood Association & New Orleans East Green Infrastructure Collective (NOEGIC)
Hub: Museum of Life and Science
Hollygrove-Dixon Neighborhood Association and NOEGIC will work together to create an updated map for New Orleans (which was mapped in 2020 through a NOAA UHI project) with updated methodologies and an adjusted map area. The project can inform future advocacy on urban tree planting and nature-based solutions in New Orleans.
New York City, New York
Lead: West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.
Hub: Museum of Science
WE ACT has been fighting to build healthy communities for over forty years. In 2025, WE ACT will conduct an indoor heat monitoring campaign in Harlem.
San Germán, Puerto Rico
Lead: Caribbean Regenerative Community Development
Hub: Museum of Life and Science
Caribbean Regenerative Community Development (CRCD) is a not-for-profit organization focused on advancing the regeneration of Puerto Rico’s natural resources and communities. This summer’s heat mapping campaign will allow CRCD to identify hotspots and inform ongoing ecological projects, including tree planting.
Yuma, Arizona
Lead: Yuma County Library District
Hub: Arizona Science Center
Yuma is known as the “sunniest place on earth,” and it’s also one of the hottest places in North America. In 2025, Yuma Library District will host heat monitoring equipment at each of their 8 libraries. The library system will develop additional programming on heat education and heat monitoring focused on the impacts of heat on human health and agriculture.