Mapping Heavy Metal Contamination in Chicago’s Neighborhoods - Livestream

For over two decades, I have partnered with undergraduate students, environmental justice organizations, Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers and their students, and faculty from various Chicago universities to study heavy metal contamination across the city of Chicago. Projects have ranged from examining contamination caused by particular industries - including the now-shuttered Crawford and Fisk coal-fired power plants - to exploring specific neighborhoods with differing demographics, to zooming in on areas where students live and go to school. Despite this, when we took a comprehensive view of our data, we realized that there were areas of the city where we had never collected even one sample. As a result, we set a goal to collect samples from all 77 community areas in Chicago to aid in answering the broad research question: to what extent is heavy metal contamination in our city correlated with socio-economic, racial, and ethnic demographics?

In this talk, I will discuss our research methods (analytical chemistry, ICP spectroscopy, and geospatial analysis), the collaborative, participatory, nature of the work, and how it is shared publicly, particularly with those most affected, through StoryMaps.

Speaker: Shelby Hatch, Northwestern University

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