2021 NOAA Education Accomplishments Report

Finding your inner explorer can be easier said than done. When Sian Proctor, Ph.D., sailed on a fisheries cruise in 2017 through the NOAA Teacher at Sea Program, she overcame her nervousness about handling fish. Proctor now believes that you don’t have to “discover something new for humanity, … you have to discover something new for you.” Though Teacher at Sea has not been able to send teachers out on research vessels since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Teacher at Sea Alumni Association has been supporting teachers through mini-grants, virtual workshops, and helping educators attend virtual conferences. For its 10th anniversary, the Teacher at Sea Alumni Association embraced Proctor’s wisdom to “find your inner explorer” by releasing a set of videos on that theme.

At the Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve, a new community of students are getting their boots wet and gathering data. The reserve partnered with the Willard, Ohio, Migrant Education Program to engage 25 students, who are children of migrant farmers, and their educators in installing a new Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network station (CoCoRaHS). Students learned about weather and watersheds, built their technical monitoring skills, and explored the reserve’s habitats. Students are not the only ones to benefit from the program. “The CoCoRaHS station is going to help us fill our data gaps in … the watershed,” said Education Coordinator Sebastian Mejia.

In March 2021, Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and Waikīkī Aquarium brought speakers together across a distance of 7,500 miles for a virtual educator workshop. Joining from American Samoa, Oʻahu, Maui, Hawaiʻi, and Washington, D.C., they were connected by a common goal: to share resources for educators in the Pacific Islands.The workshop built on NOAA’s partnerships and collaborations in the Pacific region and strove to strengthen connections with communities that had become more fragmented during the pandemic. All survey respondents were “likely” or “very likely” to recommend the National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series to others.

Magnetic navigation is an important tool used in ships, planes, and even your phone’s GPS! The CrowdMag citizen science project from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) uses a smartphone app to help fill data gaps and improve our understanding of Earth’s magnetic field. During the 2021 Earth Science Information Partner Summer Meeting’s Education Committee Teacher Workshop, NCEI introduced the CrowdMag app. Forty educators attended the multi-day virtual workshop, which focused on sharing the Earth science data tool through interactive demonstrations. The workshop got educators excited about using the app with their students: “I think this would be great to use on a walking field trip ... and then have a discussion about changes and differences,” said one participant.

With funding from NOAA Planet Stewards, Spencer Cody, a teacher in Roscoe, South Dakota, challenged his students to minimize their carbon footprint by reducing, reusing, and recycling. When both the school and the local recycling center closed their doors in response to the pandemic, it looked like the project would have to end early, far short of its goal. However, Cody and his class found a solution: recycling scrap metal, which was accepted at a different local facility. The project wrapped up in 2021, with a grand total of 11,307 kilograms of carbon dioxide prevented from entering the atmosphere, not only meeting but far exceeding the emissions reduction target.

Students in Danbury High School’s aquatic science course are getting the chance to help their local impaired watershed in Connecticut while learning about future STEM careers. Through Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) grant funding to Western Connecticut State University, the course was retooled to integrate locally relevant information and student-driven solutions. A select group of students also continued their stewardship engagement through a paid summer internship. Students’ solutions to stormwater drainage issues were showcased at a “Watershed Restoration Symposium,” where Theodora Pinou, professor at Western Connecticut State University, reflected on how she “love[s] some of the ideas” from the students.

One Cool Earth, with the support of a NOAA Marine Debris Program prevention grant, is working with students from 17 participating elementary schools across six school districts in San Luis Obispo, California, to implement more waste prevention lesson plans and practices. With over 50% of students identifying as primarily Latino, One Cool Earth consulted with Latino support groups and associations to adapt their program activities to be culturally appropriate and translated all educational materials into Spanish to better reach their bilingual audience. One Cool Earth will continue its efforts in litter-reduction education into 2022 and help students to become ocean stewards.

The Redlands Mesa area outside of Hotchkiss, Colorado, is at particularly high risk for wildfires. With the help of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences HEART Force project funded by NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program, freshmen at nearby Hotchkiss High School were able to help that community. Students played a wildlife scenario-based role-play game with local firefighters to identify potential strategies to increase awareness in Redlands Mesa to wildlife risk and to increase enrollment in emergency notifications. “The firefighters’ enthusiasm after participating in the game ‘stoked the fire’ and made the students feel like they could be changemakers,” said Michael Muniz, geophysical science teacher.

Located in the notorious “Tornado Alley,” Kansas City, Missouri is a hotspot for tornadoes. With increasing trends in tornado frequency, it’s becoming especially important for the National Weather Service (NWS) to connect with communities that are vulnerable to these extreme weather events and help them respond. To do this, the NWS Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) program’s WRN Ambassadors initiative has brought weather education to communities that do not have access to these resources. A non-profit organization called PREP Kansas City (PREP-KC) became a WRN Ambassador in 2021 and virtually brought NWS meteorologists to more than 90 classrooms, reaching more than 2,300 students who are mostly from low-income communities and students of color.

Students at Au Gres-Sims High School in Au Gres, Michigan, noticed that their city is prone to flooding during major rainstorms and decided to take action. With help from Michigan Sea Grant, students at the school wrote a grant to the state of Michigan requesting funding to create a new bioswale (a type of green infrastructure) to reduce flooding impacts. Au Gres-Sims High School teacher Luke Freeman noted how “place-based education makes students responsible for the communities they live in.” With the bioswale now installed, students are seeing improvements in stormwater runoff.

NOAA Science Camp partnered with the University of Washington’s Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology (DO-IT) program to provide a two-week marine science workshop for people with disabilities. Scientists from NOAA and Washington Sea Grant gave presentations on the marine food web in the Pacific Northwest to nine DO-IT students. At the end, the students created public service announcements about human impacts on the marine ecosystem. Even with the virtual format this year, the students got a lot out of the workshop, with one student commenting that “DO-IT and NOAA still managed to keep everyone captivated, even without the joys of experiencing the NOAA Camp in person.”

The José E. Serrano Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI) science forums showcase collaborative research between NOAA scientists and EPP/MSI Cooperative Science Center (CSC) students and faculty. Phase one of this year’s forum took place virtually in April 2021. At the forum, NOAA leadership, EPP/MSI alumni, CSC students, and other STEM professionals discussed career journeys, cutting-edge NOAA work, and students’ professional goals. Students described feeling excited, delighted, honored, and inspired after the event. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the second phase of the forum will take place in April 2022.

In 2017, an analysis of the Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship Program found that at least half of the applications started by underrepresented minority students were never submitted. The report identified suggestions for reducing barriers, including having program managers to develop relationships with advisors who could recruit and guide underrepresented minority students through the application process. In response, the Office of Education worked with NOAA Fisheries to create the Hollings Preparation Program (HPP), a program that fulfilled this need while also providing students with valuable experiences. HPP offered great mentors that have guided me on the right track to become a successful individual, offered lots of professional experience, wrote letters of recommendation, and gave me great tips for applying,” says Noah Jenkins, a former HPP student and current EPP/MSI undergraduate scholar. 

NOAA’s Diversity and Professional Advancement Working Group (DPA WG) was created in 2014 by a group of 14 scientists, analysts, and equal employment opportunity experts who were passionate about creating a more diverse and inclusive NOAA workforce. Since it began, DPA WG and its members have received numerous awards — including being recognized as one of the top 25 employee resource groups (ERGs) at the 2021 Diversity Impact Awards — for their efforts in addressing barriers that underrepresented groups within NOAA face through their three mission areas: recruitment, retention, and advancement. Read about five of their recent accomplishments in the story.

When Frank Niepold joined NOAA as a Climate Education Fellow in 2005, he had no staff, no partnerships, and no funding. Sixteen years later, Frank is now the Senior Climate Education Program Manager and Coordinator for the Climate Program Office as well as the United Nations Action for Climate Empowerment National Focal Point for the United States. Creating partnerships and building relationships are the strategies that have carried him through a decade-and-a-half of working to make the nation climate literate. “Climate genuinely generates collaboration in a way that I’ve never experienced elsewhere,” he says. In this interview, Frank shares his thoughts on what's so special about the Climate Literacy guide, how he navigates the "quasi-spaces between science, education, and society," and why he believes that every career is going to be a climate career.