Cornell Undergraduate Research To Action - Youth (CURTA-Y) club and Circular Cities and Research to Action
2023 - Ongoing
High school co-researchers from Binghamton and Vestal, along with student leaders in Cornell Undergraduate Research to Action - Youth (CURTA-Y) and graduate and undergraduate students in Dr. Minner's class Circular Cities and Research to Action. September 2024. Photo by Jenni Minner
Cornell Undergraduate Research To Action - Youth (CURTA-Y) club was incubated in the Just Places Lab. CURTA-Y is a registered student organization of Cornell University that mobilizes local high school students in the Binghamton area to identify opportunities to work toward a more circular and sustainable built environment in their community. High school co-researchers learn how to conduct research in their community, devising potential solutions and communicating them to policymakers. The organization is dedicated to cultivating the development of high school students by enriching their community engagement experiences, honing their research skills, and nurturing proficiency in public speaking and communication across various media.
CURTA-Y has worked with two cohorts of high school students from Binghamton and Vestal area high schools. CURTA-Y is led by student leaders including Najeh Abduljalil, August Guba, Heilani Kim, and Sophia Li. Dr. Jennifer Minner advises CURTA-Y, serving as a mentor and instructor.
Cornell students enrolled in Dr. Minner's class CRP 3850/5850 Circular Cities and Research to Action led the curriculum in Fall 2024. They worked with high school co-researchers to explore planning and design-based approaches and produce media to reach policy-makers and the community. They also produced a manual to build the capacity of CURTA-Y and to help guide its future.
Using Photovoice, youth co-researchers gather photographs and videos and then employ interview techniques to interrogate what they have observed in their community. CURTA-Y workshops have included methods of estimating greenhouse gas emissions, community mapping to identify opportunities for building reuse, and the creation of creative media, such as zine-making and videography.
In fall 2023, Just Places Lab researcher Dingkun Hu, Andrew Boghossian (Circular Construction Lab), and CURTA-Y student leaders Najeh Abduljalil, Evan Dickinson, and Sebastian Dunbar were instructors for the program. The high school co-researchers learned about how to take drone photography, estimated the embodied carbon in an existing building using tools produced by the Circular Construction Lab, and produced a zine that presents building reuse and deconstruction scenarios for the vacant Masonic Temple in Binghamton.
Download a printable and foldable PDF of the zine:
August Guba
CURTA-Y student leader at Cornell (2024); High School Co-Researcher from Binghamton High School (Fall 2023)
Photograph of Najeh Abduljalil and Alisha Robbins receiving a grant award from Cornell's Einhorn Office of Engagement Initiatives.
CURTA-Y originated through the efforts of Najeh Abduljalil and Alisha Starr, undergraduate researchers in the Just Places Lab in the spring of 2023. Initially launched as Research-for-Change South Central New York, CURTA-Y is now an established student organization and participatory research initiative uniting Cornell undergraduates with Binghamton area high school students to work toward transformative change.
Before establishing CURTA-Y, Najeh Abduljalil worked as a lead researcher at a youth-led research-to-action program in Reno, Nevada named Research for Change NV (R4CNV). Two professors at the University of Nevada recruited 15 low-income, first-generation high school students to study and act on issues such as uneven infrastructure development in Reno’s low-income neighborhoods and the death of Reno’s unhoused people during the city’s deadly winters.
An example of RC4NV’s work is the Sun Valley sidewalks project in Reno's most impoverished neighborhood. Youth researchers observed that instead of walkways, ditches filled with needles and broken glass lined the sides of the roads, forcing residents to traverse dangerously close to the traffic. The lack of sidewalks was responsible for two pedestrian accidents from 2016-2019, one of which was fatal. Once the youth researchers gathered enough data on the issues of infrastructure neglect in Sun Valley, they put together a policy proposal and pictures to share at a Sun Valley General Improvement District meeting. Today, because of the contributions made by R4CNV and other advocates for a safer community, sidewalks line the roads of Sun Valley.
Cornell Undergrad Research-To-Action Youth is working to similarly benefit the Binghamton area by bringing together a cohort of youth to bolster building reuse, deconstruction, and preservation— a central mission of the Just Places Lab and the Circularity Reuse and Zero Waste Development (CR0WD) network, a group of community leaders and research labs working toward a more sustainable built environment.
CURTA-Y has received grants from the Community Partnership Funding Board, the Contribution Project, the Clarence S. Stein Institute for Urban and Landscape Studies, a Robinson-Appel Award, a Janet McKinley ‘74 family grant, and an AAP Community Engagement grant (2024).