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Community Stations Community Stations

Communities and research universities can be meaningful partners to tackle today’s most urgent social and environmental challenges

The UC San Diego Community Stations are a network of field hubs located in disadvantaged neighborhoods on both sides of the San Diego–Tijuana border, designed for collaborative research, teaching and advocacy among university researchers, school districts, and community-based non profit partners. Each Community Station operates as a civic classroom that is designed, funded, managed and programmed collaboratively between UC San Diego researchers and a community-based non-profit. Together we have transformed vacant and neglected parcels and spaces into new environments for collaborative research, educational programming, cultural production, environmental literacy and climate action. The UC San Diego Community Stations are “public spaces that educate.”

The UC San Diego Community Stations blur conventional academic boundaries between research, teaching and service, and enhance UC San Diego’s mission to be a “student-centered, research-focused, service-oriented public university.” The UC San Diego Community Stations have received generous support from the late University of California Regent Richard C. Blum, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The UC San Diego Community Stations network is the first of its kind in US public higher education, providing a rich context for high-impact, immersive global poverty research and practice in close proximity to the campus. As a network, the Community Stations also provide an exceptional laboratory for educational experimentation, mixed-method evaluation and assessment, and for sharing best practices in disadvantaged communities of color across the San Diego-Tijuana border region.

Cluster Diagram

There are currently four UC San Diego Community Stations operating across the region, each focused on a unique set of urban and environmental issues

Child looking at plant

EARTHLAB

The UC SAN DIEGO-EARTHLAB Community Station is located in the Southeast San Diego neighborhood of Encanto in partnership with the non-profit Groundwork San Diego and the San Diego Unified School District.

Focus: informal K-12 education, environmental literacy and climate action.

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People sitting in a circle

CASA

The UC SAN DIEGO-CASA Community Station is located in the border neighborhood of San Ysidro, California in partnership with the non-profit Casa Familiar.

Focus: immigration, social housing, air quality and equitable urban development.

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Child holding up a gloved hand

DIVINA

The UC SAN DIEGO-DIVINA Community Station is located in the Laureles Canyon, an informal settlement of 85,000 people at the periphery of Tijuana, in partnership with the nonprofit Colonos del la Divina Providencia.

Focus: poverty, environmental health, informal urbanization, water management and cross-border environmental policy.

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Children lined up

ALACRÁN

The UC SAN DIEGO-ALACRÁN Community Station is located in the Alacrán Canyon, a precarious settlement and emergency migrant housing site at the periphery of Tijuana, in partnership with the faith-based organization Embajadores de Jesus.

Focus: emergency housing, migration and strategies for social and economic inclusion.

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