BU grad returns to South End with results of weather study

One day in July of 2013 as I was volunteering at the reception desk at the Animal Rescue League's Chandler Street headquarters, Evan Kuras, a polite and earnest Boston University student, approached me describing a study he was undertaking of temperature and people's experiences of it and seeking participants. Always eager to offer my opinions, I agreed to take part. For one week, I was one of 23 subjects who carried a small temperature sensor everywhere and wrote brief impressions of the temperature throughout the day. At the end of the survey, Kuras interviewed participants about our experiences in following his protocol, and we were compensated with our choice of a Dunkin' Donuts or a Charlie card. "The only criterion was being a South End resident at least 18 years of age," Kuras said. After graduating from BU in May of this year with a Bachelor's degree in Ecology, Kuras collaborated with a researcher at Arizona State University who helped him organize and analyze the results. "He helped me process the data. I'm better at talking to people than crunching numbers," Kuras said. Earlier this month, he returned to the South End to share his findings with study participants and with the South End community. He hopes his research will inform both individual and community decisions on preparing for and responding to weather events.

Kuras's South End study took place during a record-breaking heat wave whose high temperatures and humidity levels tested the patience of even the most devoted summer-worshippers. While it was an endurance test for many Bostonians, Kuras viewed it as a unique opportunity. He said over a bowl of lemony-chicken soup at Grille 705, "For all the work that I did to set up the study, it was a convenient and lucky time to do the temperature study because it was at the tail end of the heat wave." Although I am no fan of hot weather, I also considered the weather study an opportunity, as my participation gave some feeling of higher purpose to suffering through the miserable heat and humidity.

After leaving Boston and continuing his research at Arizona State University, Kuras was able to refine and repeat his temperature study in Phoenix last month. Again he encountered a record-breaking weather event on September 8 when the rain resulting from Hurricane Norbert shattered the daily rainfall record at Phoenix's airport. Another weather anomaly during that time was high humidity with lower than usual temperatures in famously arid Arizona. Kuras recalled that with the humidity, there was a mosquito infestation that drove residents indoors. "Having now done the research in Phoenix, a big thing we heard from the participants, the community members and the stakeholders is what are you going to do afterward to make this useful?" Reflecting on the application of his research, Kuras said, "There's this question: What do people change when it's hot? What do people change when it's raining? What do people change when there are mosquitoes everywhere? These are important questions for us when we think about how to make cities more resilient to heat waves, mosquitoes, snow and all those other things."

Kuras has become attached to Boston and the South End and wants to give back to the community. He began volunteering at Haley House's soup kitchen during his BU days, and resumed when he returned to town earlier this month. "Haley House was one of the first organizations that I connected with in the South End. I started volunteering there in the summer and continued throughout the school year. While I was volunteering there, I developed a strong interest in food justice and food services. Now that I am back, I volunteer there three times a week. I just love it there. I've been very fortunate to be connected with them," he said.

While he is in the neighborhood, Kuras is sharing his research and getting people to think about weather's effect on their lives through a wide variety of activities for various ages and audiences. He has done an art project and is teaching at the McKinley elementary school. "I'm doing a temperature gardening class with the McKinley School. "That's not as much sharing what I found but making myself and my skills useful in an interesting way for the kids," Kuras explained. On October 7, Kuras gave a talk to an audience of approximately 20 at the South End Branch Library. "It was super fantastic that I knew just about all of them because I wanted to share this with people who knew about the research and were a little bit invested in it."

Kuras also contacted South End neighborhood associations, and will speak briefly at the October 28 meeting of the Ellis Neighborhood Association. On October 31, Kuras will engage with seniors at United South End Settlements with Weather Bingo, a game of his own design, and on November 1 and 2, he will give a neighborhood walk with guidance from the South End Historical Society that will explore weather in relation to South End areas, landmarks and architecture. "The idea is to think about the confluence of history, planning, architecture and large social and economic forces, and how these big-picture things manifest themselves in very specific, day-to-day experiences of temperature that a person has. One example, the coolest one, is that when the South End was first built, you had these brownstones that were designed for cross ventilation because there was no air conditioning, and the breeze would come through, and you would be very comfortable in your house if it was kept in the original state. When a lot of the houses were turned into boarding houses, they put walls and all that and the cross ventilation was stopped, so now you have these very stuffy rooms without any ventilation. Now it's unbearable to be inside the house, where before it was thermally comfortable. So what do you do? You sit outside on the stoop. It so happens that a lot of the stoops in the South End were made of this kind of concrete that does not absorb heat and stays cool to the touch. If the stoops were made of brick, it would have been a different experience," Kuras noted. Indeed, South End old-timers fondly recall sitting on the stoop with neighbors until well into the night. On the demise of this tradition, Kuras observed, "You don't see it as much as you used to. There are a lot of explanations for that. One is that it is so much more comfortable inside people's houses now. That's the kind of story I want to tell, about the buildings, the parks, the streets and the trees." During the walk, Kuras hopes to discuss "how people and climate shape each other, and how that matters."

Kuras is not yet through investigating weather in Boston. He said, "In February, I really want to come back and do the same thing I did with heat in the South End but with the cold. It would be really important to think about with the Long Island closing. Thinking about how people experience cold is something that researchers and policy makers haven't put much energy into. I'm even considering doing a 'before and after' with the same people. What's it like to look at your own data? Are you going to make different decisions for yourself, your household and your community?" Kuras hopes that sharing his insights will increase awareness of how weather events can affect the most vulnerable residents, such as the elderly, disabled and homeless and encourage neighbors to look out for them. "If we care about each other, we should keep an eye on each other," Kuras said.

Kuras's neighborhood walks are scheduled at 11:00 AM on Saturday, November 1 and 12:00 noon on Sunday, November 2. For more information or to RSVP, please e-mail erkuras@bu.edu.