BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Conservation Corps is monitoring four devices in Boise to collect data about the heat for a six-week research program to then serve the Boise community. They are working with the City of Boise and the Treasure Valley Tree Canopy Network.
The goal is to find out how the heat affects different landscapes in Boise. There are four different sites – one in a parking lot, one next to a street, one under shade and one in a neighborhood.
“It's very important to do this urban heat study to understand where people are experiencing extreme heat, because that influences our health, and influences our quality of life,” said Lance Davisson, director of Treasure Valley Tree Canopy Network.
Boise is one of four cities across the U.S. doing this pilot-program study. The other three are Cleveland, Chicago and Boulder.
Destiny Hanson is an Idaho Conservation Corps lead, and she said they check the devices three times per week. The goal is to show how tree canopies affect different landscapes with the heat in Boise, and then the Treasure Valley Tree Canopy Network will use that data to plant, or tend to, more trees in Boise.
“It's kind of looking at the overall picture of how heat affects the entire area,” Hanson said.