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FIU Professors Win Grant For South Florida Sea-Level Rise Project

go_greener_oz via Flickr

Florida International University is one of twelve colleges in the country to win a grant from the Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education this year. Four FIU journalism professors proposed a project on sea-level rise in South Florida.Juliet Pinto, Susan Jacobson, Kate MacMillin and Robert Gutsche are the FIU journalism professors who proposed and are now creating the South Florida Sea-Level Rise project. The goal is to give South Floridians easy access to data on sea-level rise, using a website and an app created by students.

Robert Gutsche says, "It's really getting the citizens into the classroom and the students out of the classroom."

To do that, the professors will launch two courses in the Fall - one on geographic information systems. That’s where the app will be created. The other class will focus on investigative journalism. Students will use the data to live report on their findings.

The project will first present all the current data on sea-level rise to South Floridians, but will add what the professors call "crowd hydrology."

"Well, it's crowd sourcing data related to hydrology - how water flows and how it collects - we want people to contribute their own lived experiences with flooding", said Juliet Pinto, one of the professors who wants to build an app locals can use to understand the impact sea-level rise will have on their homes and businesses. 

Bruno Grudny is a senior at FIU, and plans to sign up for the project in the fall. He lives in Miami Beach and witnesses sea-level rise regularly.

"You can actually see on 5th and Alton how the sea-level rises and the cars have to go through little pieces of ocean on the road", Grudny said.

The professors had their first project meeting last week, but hope to work out out all the kinks through the summer.