Augmented Reality, Activism & Data Storytelling Workshop

This online workshop is designed to get you to consider the possibilities of Augmented Reality (AR), how it can be used as a tool for activism and data storytelling, and interactively engage with your audience. We welcome participants of all skill levels, as this is a beginner-friendly workshop and we will be walking you through the basics of creating AR filters. 

What is environmental justice?
“Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms associated with resource extraction, hazardous waste, and other land uses.” – Schlosberg, David. (2007) Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature. Oxford University Press.

How does citizen science support environmental justice?
Citizen science puts the power of data back in the hands of everyday people.

Citizens have many rights and responsibilities regarding our stewardship of the environment. We have the right to expect prompt and accurate information about the state of the environment and potential hazards. We have the right to expect our wishes to be represented in decision-making about any aspect of the environment that affects us. And we have the right to recourse to justice when these other rights are violated. These rights and their consequences have been carefully established in international agreements such as the Aarhus Convention.

Citizen science, like that practiced by Safecast volunteers, provides a way for us to not only claim these rights but also to act on them. Citizen science frees us from dependence on government or other institutions to provide us information about the environment, and furthers transparency. We can gather and share high-quality data ourselves, and can use it as scientific evidence that can be entered as evidence in the decision-making process for environmental policy, or for legal action.

This workshop’s theme text written by Azby Brown, Safecast Lead Reseacher

• People interested in activism, social good, environmental justice and/or data storytelling.
• People interested in AR, creative tech, digital design and/or visual communication.
• People interested in connecting with others from various disciplines and industries.

Safecast provides publicly available environmental data maps that anyone can use to conduct research, and create projects. Safecast maintains the largest open dataset of background radiation measurements ever collected. Over 150 million readings to date and growing daily. All data collected by Safecast is released under a CC0 public domain designation. Anyone is free to use it for free with no licensing restrictions.

This workshop is jointly organized by Ricebox Studio, Safecast with the support of FabCafe.