Gulf TREE is a powerful resource that boasts hundreds of monthly users – users interested in finding the right climate resilience tool. Surveys have shown that most climate resilience professionals tend to use the same tools, and if they’re looking for new tools, they may go to close colleagues. But, they most often try to find what they need through Google.
Google is great for many things, but it unfortunately falls short when it comes to matching you with tools. That’s why Gulf TREE exists.
GulfTREE.org was released in 2018, and its goal is to quickly, easily and confidently provide you with relevant climate resilience tools. It works as a filter-based search engine, asking you to answer a handful of questions about what you need a tool to do, where you need it to work and other factors (the cost, level of effort, level of expertise, etc.). It also has additional advanced filter options, like whether or not the tool requires data input, tool outputs or other features. These narrow down the potential tools you could be matched with – from 104 current tools! This living database is regularly adding, retiring and updating tools, too. So if you try it and can’t find what you’re hoping for, you can always try again in the future (though it may be a tool needs gap that tool developers can work on!).
Workshop series trains trainers
Gulf TREE was built with end-users and underwent an iterative review process to ensure it would be very user-friendly, so using it does not require any training. However, due to partner interest and a few slight nuances in more advanced uses of Gulf TREE, the tool's outreach team developed a Train the Trainer workshop series. This training provided an advanced look into Gulf TREE and how it works along with nuances in use that can help a user ensure they are getting everything they can from the site. Essentially, it made it so that participants could serve as Gulf TREE experts.
The training was scenario-based, providing participants the opportunity to try out a number of different real-life scenarios of Gulf TREE use. For example, in one advanced scenario, users worked to help a healthcare professional trying to investigate socially vulnerable populations that are vulnerable to increasing heat.
The 3.5-hour virtual trainings were well received, with 98% of surveyed participants saying it was a good use of their time and 90% planning to apply what they learned in future work or decisions. And, most importantly, 85% of participants agree that it increased their access to climate resilience tools (the remaining participants all maintained the same level of "high" or "a good amount of" access)!
Kit to make workshop series available
After numerous requests from participants and others, the Train the Trainer workshop series is currently being compiled into an easy-to-use resource kit that you can get for free and use on your own or with others.
We anticipate a mid-summer 2021 release. If you’re interested in getting this resource kit for yourself when it’s released, email Mikaela Heming at m.heming@msstate.edu and ask about getting added to the list to be notified!
The resource kit will also be published online on www.GulfTREE.org‘s resources page.