Summary
First monthly update of Horn Family Fund for Environmental research.
My research this month has been incredibly exciting! I arrived back in Utah on May 17th and since then I have been able to get a large amount of foundational work done with my research. First, I started by scoping out public libraries and archives in Utah to further understand the history of Salt Lake City through maps. I have discovered some interesting information, for example, food deserts and apartheid have recently been studied extensively in Utah by the University of Utah showcasing that this is indeed a problem in SLC. This has been helpful to look at as I continue to build off of these academic journals they have released and many of them mention communal efforts to combat these issues.
I have been fortunate enough to go to the Great Salt Lake with Professor Bonnie Baxter and one her students, Cora and learn more about the research they have been doing on the lake through Westminster College and what can be done to possibly help the conditions the lake is struggling with such as increasing salinity levels and diversion of water that would naturally flow to lake to other things such as agriculture. I found this day and other sources that Professor Baxter shared with me helpful in the public policy aspects of my research as a majority of environmental policy efforts in Utah are based on water restriction or access. All of my photos below are from that day I went with them as they did their field work.
From June 10th through the end of July, I will be at the University of California, Berkeley for a fellowship, so my on person site visits and interviews will be conducted in August when I return to Utah. I have gathered all my sources and I plan to finish reading and researching through the rest of June. I have also begun the process of reaching out to community gardens for the interviews and hope to have that solidified by the end of June/beginning of July.
