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HighWaterLine Action Guide
HighWaterline Action Guide is a step by step resource for creating the HighWaterLine project in communities. It is developed by the artist Eve Mosher in collaboration with Patricia Watts, founder of EcoArtSpace, which present replicable social practice public art projects.This is the first in a series of ten art and ecology learning guides.This 36-page guide invites educators, organizations and individuals to replicate HighWaterLine anywhere in the world, to tell the story and to mark a line as appropriate for each individual locale. In the guide, other waterline marking materials and examples are provided, as well as the step-by-step process involved in developing and performing the project. The goal of this guide is to create one's own HighWaterLine in their communities and neighborhoods where climate change has and will be impacting their environment in the future.

HighWaterLine
HighWaterLine, different from high water marks, uses art to help communities visualize how climate change is and will be impacting their communities. HighWaterLine does this by using art as an innovative tool to help visualize otherwise hard to grasp scientific climate data, facilitate stakeholder dialogue and ideally spark community resiliency initiatives.Since climate change impacts regions differently, HighWaterLine invites local communities to adapt HighWaterLine to their local regions and cultures. The criteria uniting the diverse HighWaterLines is that all the art is grounded in sound scientific data.With the acceleration of global warming and the unprecedented melting of land ice (glaciers, ice caps & ice sheets), many other global communities might also find themselves using HighWaterLine to illustrate how sea level rise and extreme storm surges will impact them. This is especially true since over half of the world cities are now vulnerable to sea level rise and increased flooding. Every place is different.

HighWaterLine Project
In HighWaterLine, a performance piece, Eve Mosher traces a chalk line at 10 feet above sea level. She first drew this line in New York City in 2007, marking over 70 miles of coastline that would be affected by increased flooding. The location of the line is based on mapping and statistical data and brings art directly to a community, creating conversation with people living in or using areas threatened by the effects of climate change. Mosher reflected on the predictive nature of her project after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 flooded many of her marked areas. Mosher is working with local communities to bring HighWaterLine to places like Dublin, Ireland; Miami; and, in April 2014, Philadelphia.

Artist's Intention
In Eve Mosher's personal blog, she wrote that, "this project had a deep and indelible impact on me, my work and my understanding of what it means to create work in the public. I developed an in depth understanding of the issues affecting my community in the face of climate change. It helped me boil down a complex issue into real, comprehendible local impacts that could be related to communities at large in a fairly simple and straight forward manner. It helped me understand the power of art in providing clarity, entrance to complicated issues and a moment of spectacle which can act as a catalyst for greater conversation and action. It really helped me understand the “power of one.” And it gave me an intimate view of my community, the community at risk and our own relationship with climate change."

"And the amazing thing is, all of this can occur within the reenactments of the project in other communities around the world.There are also a lot of concrete and measurable learning outcomes within the project: students learning about climate science and contemporary and local environmental issues. They learn about geography, topography and mapping. They learn technology. They learn public speaking skills and storytelling skills. There is the documentation that they do which hones their ability to record and relate the experience. And if partnered with an institution, the ability to share the experience through the documentation."

Characteristics
Activities found in the guide have been broken into STAGES, which can be executed individually or all together, and at the depth that makes sense with the learning goals of an organization or institution. Included in each stage are ACTION STEPS to create your own placed based HighWaterLine. At the end of the guide are RESOURCES and SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVITIES sections that can be aligned with Common Core Standards.

Application
This guide is designed to get the public started on creating HighWaterLines in their own communities. HighWaterLine is made up of diverse people from around the world who are adapting HighWaterLine to their local cultures and communities.Eve and Heidi Quante serve as Co-Directors of the HighWaterLine, supporting individuals and communities at various levels to help them realize this innovative way of visualizing climate change.Additionally each region has an amazing team of participants and supporters. The projects have been carried out in the following regions, and there are other places such as Florida state and San Diego City working on it as well. ◾Bristol & Avon ◾Miami ◾New York City ◾Philadelphia

Influence
Art, community and environment

The goal of Eve’s work is really meant to create a dialogue between people and their communities about how they can protect their homes from the effects of climate change. Though she has created HighWaterLines in major cities around the world, including The Hague, San Francisco, and Dublin, she does not seek to create HighWaterLines on a global scale on her own. “She wants people to take action for their own homes, thus strengthening community environmental connection, power, and responsibility to the land on a personal level.” She explains this idea further to the effects the project creates. The participation has led to the project being conducted with communities in Philadelphia, Miami, and Bristol to help them visualize their climate impacts and risk. Mosher once said, “We’re reaching way outside the choir here. The idea is to get people who are living in these communities thinking about this, and talking with their neighbors about how to respond and be a stronger city.” She finds another way that scientists and experts have to struggle to make it, which is to make environmental issues real and close to people.