CREATE Resilience: Community Resiliency Tour

CREATE Resilience is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between youth and community to increase knowledge of weather and climate science, the risks from local hazards, and strategies for hazard mitigation, while storytelling and co-creating a vision for community resilience.

Our project has involved a group of youth ambassadors from three area high schools (Easton, Wilson and Bangor) who have been learning alongside us in the 2019-2020 school year about the nature of hazards in our areas and mitigation strategies to reduce losses. Our program included plans for a bus tour with our ambassadors to visit locations in the Lehigh Valley where on-the-ground mitigation projects have successfully addressed local hazards. Because of closures due to COVID-19, our tour is now virtual, and the entire community is invited to join us.

From stormwater management to flooding and invasive species, the stops on this virtual tour feature individuals and communities who created proactive mitigation responses to local hazards affecting residents and the landscape.  The stories include photos, maps, interviews with project leaders and virtual site tours to allow you to experience a “walk-through” of the locations. Grab a seat and join us on an exploration of successful Lehigh Valley mitigation locations.

The Lehigh Valley region faces a range of natural hazards that challenge our communities. The stories in this virtual tour highlight the ways that area residents, including volunteers and community leaders, responded to these hazards facing their local environment. For more information about hazards and mitigation in the Lehigh Valley, you can explore the Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation plan, which details the range and extent of hazards throughout the region, and provides an overview of identified mitigation strategies:  http://ncem-pa.org/hazard-mitigation/  More climate and hazard resilience resources are available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration here:  https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/resilience-assets .

Follow Nurture Nature Center on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for more events and information related to the CREATE Resilience project and visit us at  https://nurturenaturecenter.org/create-resilience/