Cornell Undergraduate Research To Action - Youth (CURTA-Y) club and Circular Cities and Research to Action
2023 - Ongoing
Cornell Undergraduate Research To Action - Youth (CURTA-Y) club is a registered student organization of Cornell University that mobilizes local high school students in the Binghamton area to identify opportunities to build a circularity in the built environment and influence public policy. 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.
Dr. Minner and the Just Places Lab team are supporting the efforts of this student organization and research initiative. Researchers in the Just Places Lab helped to incubate the student organization and effort. In fall 2024, undergraduate and graduate students in Dr. Jenni Minner's class CRP 3850/5850 Circular Cities and Research to Action began working with CURTA-Y and the high school students participating in the youth program. They are working with high school co-researchers to explore planning and design-based approaches and produce media to reach policy-makers and the community. They are also helping CURTA-Y to build a plan for the future of the student organization.
CURTA-Y aims to highlight and solve ongoing problems in the underserved communities the youth researchers represent. CURTA-Y also seeks to develop the youth participants’ community engagement experiences, research skills, and comfort with public speaking. Using Photovoice, youth co-researchers gather photographs and videos and then employ interview techniques to interrogate what they have observed in their community. Youth also learn of additional methods, such as methods of estimating greenhouse gas emissions and the use of creative media, such as zine-making.
August Guba
CURTA-Y student leader at Cornell (2024); High School Co-Researcher from Binghamton High School (Fall 2023)
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. Cornell graduate student researchers in the Just Places Lab and a researcher from the Circular Construction Lab also serve as instructors for the program. Dr. Jenni Minner is a mentor and advisor to CURTA-Y.
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).