Page 49 - Mapping the Nation: Taking Climate Action

problem, like shade equity in LA. In 2019, the SEEDS program culminated in 12 project-based paid internships at local nonprofit organizations, also funded by the NSF grant. With the help of Community Partners, an organization that provides support and resources to over 200 LA nonprofit organizations, SEEDS scholars are matched to nonprofit organizations with particular needs. "Education should be designed to make a difference for the individual and the community that they come from, in addition to elevating the thinking and approach that people have," Scott-Johnson said. "And the social justice piece is the individual's growth in context with the communities that they either come from or that they will choose to serve." Estrada was one of those SEEDS scholars, and he decided to work with a nonprofit called City Plants to address LA's tree canopy equity. Greening the City, with Data City Plants, a nonprofit public-private partnership with the City of LA, is funded through the Department of Water and Power. Its mission is to create an equitable urban forest for all Angelenos. Its leaders point to research from the LA Urban Cooling Collaborative that directly ties increased forest canopy to lives saved, especially in low-income communities and communities of color. City Plants program director Rachel O'Leary believes, "City Plants is at the intersection of a lot of equity and social justice work—trying to take relevant data, relevant research, and weave it together to help inform urban forestry equity priorities in the city while also making sure to center the voices of the communities that we work with in that effort." In 2019, City Plants compiled data chronicling where they planted trees, what types, and who the recipients were. All that data lived in spreadsheets where it was difficult to access and use. That's where Estrada's internship came in—he cleaned and organized the data into a GIS where it could be mapped, analyzed, and visualized. He built out a data infrastructure for City Plants, so data could continue to be organized, accessible, and useful long after his internship ended. "They had five years' worth of data, about 30,000 records of trees and addresses. I had to figure out a way to make that usable," Estrada explained. "Using maps is a great way to visualize the impact of a nonprofit. And my nonprofit is dedicated to planting trees, so I wanted to take all the data that they had on all the trees planted and put those points on a map." Visualizing the data helped O'Leary and the City Plants team better understand trends in their program, such as where they deliver the most trees, and focus their efforts, highlighting areas with room to grow. "City Plants is up to big things, and we only have a staff of three. Having a SEEDS scholar on our team was incredible," O'Leary said. "He not only centralized the data and standardized it, but he also gave us tools to continue what he had worked on." The nonprofit was able to share its maps of trees planted with the program funder, partners, and city officials to "celebrate the impact of our work in urban forestry and also show where we have more work to do," O'Leary said. The team experienced another unexpected benefit to organizing its geospatial data—easily accessible records of constituents served, mapped by location: an instant customer management system. Partnering to Create Real Change Real change and momentum are happening in Los Angeles as a result of partnerships, collaboration, and open data. Mayor Garcetti appointed the city's first City Forest Officer, Rachel Malarich, formerly of another nonprofit, Tree People. The mayor also committed the city to plant 90,000 new 48 Extreme Heat