Climate and Sustainability

Developing Research Strategies to Assess the Expanding Work on Climate Adaptation, Resilience, and Mitigation at AmeriCorps

CECE Director, Dana R. Fisher has secured funding from Americorps to support a three-year project: Developing Research Strategies to Assess the Expanding Work on Climate Adaptation, Resilience, and Mitigation at AmeriCorps. The project builds on a long-term partnership with collaborators from across the US government in the USDA US Forest Service and Department of Interior/National Park Service that has been evaluating federal service corps programs to assess the ways that climate is becoming a major focus for various federal service corps programs.

The project will develop research strategies to assess, evaluate, and monitor the expanding work on climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation at AmeriCorps. Once these strategies have been developed, it will pilot research to track and monitor those strategies and insights. The main goal of the project is to build a strategy for Americorps and its programs to evaluate the effects of these programs on the people who serve, the communities in which they operate, and on the environments that they are aiming to steward.

CECE Program Manager W. Chris Jayko will work with Fisher to assess all four of the Americorps Programs— National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), State and National, VISTA, and Seniors—to assess the ways that these programs are addressing the causes and consequences of our changing climate.

The multi-year project also includes a yearly Research Symposium on Climate in Our Nation’s Service. The first Research Symposium is scheduled to take place on April 18th, 2024, at American University.