CREATE Resilience: Building a Resilient Community

How can a community CREATE a vision of resilience? Resilient communities are knowledgeable about their local environment, the hazards and risks, and their assets and strengths. Community members are engaged and connected with each other, able to prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. To help local communities develop a shared vision of community resilience, the Nurture Nature Center (NNC), a non-profit located in Easton, PA that strives to build community resiliency by leveraging the power of informal science education, art-centered approaches to learning, and community dialogue and networking, embarked on a four year project funded by NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. During the CREATE Resilience project, NNC worked with youth, adults, and municipal leaders in three communities – Easton, Wilson, and Bangor, PA – to increase knowledge of weather and climate science, the risks from local hazards, and strategies for hazard mitigation. Through community meetings, surveys, interviews, story-telling and photovoice exhibits, forums, tours, and community mapping exercises, NNC engaged the community in thinking about what resilience means in order to co-create a vision of community resilience, depicted in large murals created by participating, local artists active in each community.

This roughly four minute film was created specifically for the Science on a Sphere and provides an overview of the CREATE Resilience project. It features interviews with a local official, artist, emergency management professional, community member, and youth ambassador, and showcases the three community murals that reflect each community’s vision of resilience. The film is meant to share the project (a unique combination of science, art, and community) and provide inspiration and an example to other communities interested in a resiliency focus.

You can check out more details about the project at NNC’s website, take a virtual resiliency tour, and access community guidebooks along with other resilience related resources.

Note: This film may be shared and distributed only among the NOAA Science On a Sphere network for members to display at their site. This film may not be displayed on any application other than a Science On a Sphere. No segment of the film may be repurposed or distributed in any way other than its original intended use. The film must be shown in its entirety.