Happy Friday. As we reach the end of Augustus Caesar's month with the dog days of summer behind us(in the Northern Hemisphere), here are some updates from the Public Lab community for the week:

Grant with the Toxic Action Center
 Public Lab and Toxics Action Center [http://www.toxicsaction.org/] received a grant to work on teaching Vermont communities to use Public Lab tools for Environmental Advocacy for the next 2 years! TAC has been helping communities organize to clean up and prevention pollution in the Northeast since 1987. Anyone in the PLOTS community whose interested in Vermont issues please join us in thinking through training and organizing there! Just add your contact info to this wiki page and we'll be in touch: http://publiclaboratory.org/wiki/vermont-public-lab-organizing-toxics-action-center-and-public-lab

Work towards hydrogen sulfide testing In Aztec, New Mexico Designs for next round of experiments towards the goal of sensing H2S.
 http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/megan/8-20-2012/designs-next-round-experiments-aztec-new-mexico

Mexico City Balloon Mapping 
Alex Barth @lxbarth and friends got ahold of a balloon mapping kit and are working on mapping in Mexico City’s Bosque de Chapultepec park. http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/diary/17496

MapKnitter Polishing 
MapKnitter continues to mature with more features and bug fixes. Dynamic overlay placement and improved centering with the map viewer are new this week. http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/warren/8-17-2012/new-mapknitter-bugfixes

Oyster Reef mapping along the Bronx river 
NY/NJ Baykeeper, Kerstin Kalchmayr, and friends mapped at the Bronx River along Soundview Park.
 http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/liz/8-21-2012/bronx-river-soundview-park-oyster-reef-mapping

Map of Davis Square. Summerville, Massachusetts Members of PLOTS Boston finished a map this week that they created earlier this year as a group.
 http://publiclaboratory.org/map/davis-square-somerville-massachusetts/2012-04-22

Map of Northeast False Creek. Vancouver, British Columbia 
Have a look at recreation boats and the Vancouver waterfront outside the Plaza of Nations Marina.
 http://publiclaboratory.org/map/northeast-false-creek-vancouver-bc/2012-08-16