The Public Laboratory

The Grassroots Mapping Forum – a printed map journal

Printed on a single 22.75×35″ sheet, folded down to just over letter size, it includes a full color reproduction of a grassroots map along with essays, illustrated guides, and interviews on the reverse »

PLOTS Receives Support for Expanding Civic Science Program

Knight News Challenge award will advance PLOTS' growing citizen-based, grassroots data gathering and research »

The Public Laboratory Archive

PLOTS launches an open-source archive of grassroots maps »

Infrared vegetation monitoring

Balloon mapping with DIY infrared cameras »

Contamination monitoring

Brooklyn activists document the Superfund cleanup of the Gowanus Canal and other sites of industrial contamination »

PLOTS at the Whitney Museum

Public Laboratory staff led a workshop at Trade School's event at the Whitney Museum of American Art, teaching visitors how to construct and use their own spectrometers »

Using inexpensive DIY techniques, we seek to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms. We are activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model.

This community began as the Grassroots Mapping project, an effort to produce Do-It-Yourself satellite imagery with balloons and kites, most notably during the 2010 BP oil spill. We are now broadening our scope to explore new inexpensive and community-led means to measure and explore environmental and social issues.

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