Youth Climate Leadership in Central America: Projects from Jóvenes Geoespaciales
At the Jóvenes Geoespaciales training in El Salvador, 45 talented young students worked in groups to use NASA satellite data and Google Earth Engine to develop projects for local climate resilience. Each group learned how to develop their own ArcGIS StoryMaps web page for displaying their data, which they can use to advocate for climate action. The majority of students are from rural areas and plan to apply what they learned to support their families and communities.
Agricultural Monitoring
Jeison Romero and Tatiana Gómez worked on a project for climate-resilient agriculture, using NASA satellite data to track changes in temperature, precipitation, and crop health in El Salvador. Both students live on farms and want to share geospatial technologies with their family, especially satellite data that can help to more precisely irrigate crops during drought. “My grandfather loved to farm,” Jeison commented. “I'm going to combine everything he taught me with these new tools. He would have loved that.”
Jeison shared how excited he was to learn from experts from NASA and RAC in Costa Rica. “In space, there are no borders. Here, there weren't any either.”
Click here to see this group’s agricultural monitoring project.
Fire Risk Mapping
This group of students (Alejandra Yanes, Fernando Romero, Fátima Mejía, Francisco Robles, Diego Solis, and Nehemías Martínez) explored how wildfires have dramatically increased in El Salvador over the last decade, and developed a map for protecting areas at the highest risk for fire outbreak. Many of the students did not know that wildfires were an issue in their country and want to take steps to increase community awareness.
Jóvenes Geoespaciales student Diego Solis noted how important satellite data is for tracking environmental issues. “This project opened my eyes to the fact that the world can be changing in ways that we don’t even notice,” Diego shared. “I was surprised to see that wildfires have been increasing so much in El Salvador, and I’m motivated to work with NASA data and local governments to create projects to protect against fires in forested areas.”
Check out the Jóvenes Geoespaciales fire risk mapping here.
Urbanization
Students Ashley García, Cledy Claros, and Mairelos Funes created a project for mapping urbanization across El Salvador, over the last 15 years. They examined the impact of growing cities on temperature and proposed solutions for mitigating the urban “heat island” effect.
The students shared how impactful it was to see how urban expansion from years ago affects temperatures in cities today. Ashley shared that this project showed her how important it is to educate young people about climate issues. "I can see a butterfly effect,” she commented. “What we do today has huge impacts on our climate in the future."
Read more about this urbanization project here.