{"id":5678,"date":"2025-05-08T10:25:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T14:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/giving\/?p=5678"},"modified":"2025-08-07T11:51:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:51:52","slug":"bates-students-hack-real-world-problems-including-lead-poisoning-to-help-a-downtown-lewiston-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/giving\/2025\/05\/08\/bates-students-hack-real-world-problems-including-lead-poisoning-to-help-a-downtown-lewiston-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates students hack real-world problems, including lead poisoning, to help a downtown Lewiston neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For two days each semester, Assistant Professor of Economics Kyle Coombs\u2019 \u201cData Science for Economists\u201d students are laser-focused on one goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They hole away in a reserved space on campus for a 48-hour \u201chackathon\u201d to test their problem-solving skills and apply code, economics, and data science to real-world issues in the local Lewiston community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coombs\u2019 goals for the class are to teach students the skills needed for real-world project management and to tackle problems which harm society as a whole. Knowing how to work with data can be a great tool for justifying, evaluating, and addressing socioeconomic concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"historic
This circa 1980 image shows Birch Street in downtown Lewiston. In partnership with the city of Lewiston, Bates students engaged in a recent hackathon to evaluated data about the city’s efforts to address lead-paint hazards, which focuses on homes built between 1920 and 1940. (Gridley Barrows\/Old Pictures of Forgotten Maine)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe motivation is around using data to get at social issues, inequality issues, and how it manifests around race, gender, income inequality, economic opportunity, and whether that’s equitable,\u201d Coombs says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the fall 2024 hackathon, Coombs\u2019 students tackled a project to examine the efficacy of the city of Lewiston\u2019s efforts to address lead-paint hazards. Like many other cities around the country with aging housing stock, Lewiston has faced problems of lead paint exposure and poisoning in the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lewiston\u2013Auburn area\u2019s rate of childhood lead poisoning incidents is the highest in the state, according to Healthy Androscoggin, a public health initiative focused on wellness and disease prevention in Androscoggin County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’re the second largest city in Maine, and we have per capita the highest number of young people in the state,\u201d says Jacqueline Crucet, a former city of Lewiston neighborhood development planner who has worked with Coombs and his students. \u201cIt’s very important that we have healthy homes for these young people to grow in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1.
Eli Toffel \u201925 of Brookline, Mass., presents findings during a hackathon for the course \u201cData Science for Economists,\u201d taught by Assistant Professor of Economics Kyle Coombs, that uses city records and census data to address real-world policy challenges. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Through a partnership set up by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, Coombs connected with Crucet, who provided the hackathon students with information about the city\u2019s lead program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data included comparisons of lead paint prevalence with home age and socioeconomic indices, statistics about the kinds of homes that the city has targeted for lead mitigation programs, how the programs are implemented, whether through grant-subsidized or fee-based models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coombs\u2019 students analyzed the data and found that the city\u2019s efforts to reduce lead exposure are mostly meeting their goal of targeting homes with the greatest risk of lead exposure, suggesting that during upcoming efforts, the city focus its attention on homes built between 1920 and 1940.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coombs\u2019 other hackathons thus far have focused on the correlation between streetlights and decreased crime rates and designing rental assistance pilot programs to support local renters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, the verb \u201chack\u201d has shifted away from its nefarious meaning \u2014 anonymous computer geniuses working to steal data \u2014 to mean solving a problem or creating a shortcut. To wit, a hackathon is a fast-paced, collaborative gathering, with suitable high-tech overtones, to solve a problem in a short period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1.
Kyle Coombs, an assistant professor of economics, teaches \u201cData Science for Economists,\u201d which culminates in a 48-hour hackathon that showcase his students\u2019 emerging \u201ccreativity and technical skill, which is a lot of what you do in workplace scenarios.\u201d (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hackathons showcase the students\u2019 emerging \u201ccreativity and technical skill,\u201d Coombs says, \u201cwhich is a lot of what you use in workplace scenarios.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each semester, Coombs collaborates with the Harward Center to reserve a campus space for the hackathon; there, students hunker down to work, though the \u201chackers\u201d come and go for classes, sports, and sleep. While they hack, Coombs fields takeout requests and delivers favorites like Mother India and Pure Thai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Brown \u201925 of Hopkinton, Mass., arrived at his hackathon last fall straight from track practice and settled in to work with a burrito in hand. He says he spent six to ten hours each day working on his team\u2019s project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was with fully comped, really good meals, and working with a great team of people,\u201d Brown says. \u201cIt never felt at any point that I was not going to finish or felt rushed. It overall was a very positive experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1.
Nick Brown \u201925 of Hopkinton, Mass., arrived at last fall’s hackathon straight from track practice and settled in to work with a burrito in hand. The hackathon experience “was really insightful for me, how you can leverage your skills to create meaningful impacts.\u201d (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like a team of coworkers, the students were responsible for independently dividing up group work and coordinating their schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did a lot of the data cleaning and then the regressions, other people did a lot of visualizations or worked on the presentation itself,\u201d Brown says. \u201cIt felt very natural, and we also felt like we were communicating very well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cData Science for Economists\u201d is cross-listed as both an economics and a digital and computational studies course. The hackathon is the culmination of a semester spent, for many of Coombs\u2019 students, learning to code for the first time, an often-frustrating process of trial and error. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will make constant mistakes,\u201d Coombs says. \u201cIt’s about learning how to get through the mistakes, push through, address the problems, help yourself find creative solutions to a technical problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students organize their work in GitHub, a software storage program, and code in the language \u201cR,\u201d which is free and open source, meaning any student can access the code from their personal computer. An economics and history major with a minor in math, Brown used the R skills he learned during the course to complete his senior economics thesis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn terms of raw skill building, this was probably the number one class I’ve taken at Bates,\u201d Brown says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After each two-day hackathon, the students present their work to city partners and make recommendations based on what they discovered. The city partners can then use the analyses in their own evaluations and projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"student
Tife\u00a0Agunloye ’25 of Monroe,\u00a0Conn., shares findings from last semester’s hackathon on the progress of lead-paint safety efforts in the downtown neighborhoods of Lewiston. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really cool to be able to present to community members and see them actually derive insights from what we found and think about how those could be used to actually benefit people,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThat was really insightful for me, how you can leverage your skills to create meaningful impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each hackathon subject ties directly into greater city plans. In 2020, Lewiston received a $1.3 million federal grant to develop a resident-led transformation plan, \u201cGrowing Our Tree Streets,\u201d for its downtown neighborhood, which has nine goals that will be accomplished across 25 years.\u00a0(“Tree streets\u201d is the nickname of the neighborhood where many streets have names like Oak and Maple.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the strength of the transformation plan, the city was awarded a $30 million Choice Implementation Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1.
The Bates students worked with the city of Lewiston staff, including Jacqueline Crucet, on the hackathon projects. \u201cThe exercise enables them to have the opportunity to inform actual policy and the business of the municipality in which they live.\u201d (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lewiston is the first small city in the country to receive the competitive grant, which is intended to help cities revitalize and transform neighborhoods. \u201cWe are like this beautiful experiment,\u201d Crucet says. \u201cWe’re the right size for this kind of major investment where we’re taking some risks and trying to be as innovative as possible to meet the goals that we’ve set out in the transformation plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucet was attracted to Lewiston because of that very \u201cgo getter\u201d mindset that led residents, including Bates alumni, to lead the charge for the transformation plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have this amazing cadre of Bates alumni,\u201d Crucet says. \u201cThey’re doers and they’re taking all of their knowledge and all of their life experience and investing in Lewiston, and they see a future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1.
Xanthe Miller \u201925 of Short Hills, N.J., shares findings from last semester’s hackathon on the progress of lead-paint safety efforts in the downtown neighborhoods of Lewiston. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By tackling subjects included in the city transformation plan and making suggestions to the city, Coombs\u2019 students are able to join in on these real-world efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe exercise of the hackathon enables them to have the opportunity to inform actual policy and the business of the municipality in which they live,\u201d Crucet says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original story posted here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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