The Environmental Literacy Program ended in 2025. No further competitive grant opportunities will be offered. Some previously funded projects are still active, and we will continue to report their impacts here.
NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program (ELP) provided grants and other support to organizations that help people use Earth system science to improve environmental stewardship and resilience.
ELP educated people.
ELP helped people use NOAA’s scientific assets to understand how human and natural systems interact.
ELP built resilience.
ELP enabled people to protect themselves, their communities, and the environment by helping them reduce their vulnerabilities to environmental hazards.
ELP expanded capacity.
ELP catalyzed long-term positive change by connecting individuals, communities, institutions, and networks with each other and with the resources they need.
2025 Impacts
- More than 1,200 formal and informal educators participated in ongoing professional learning communities designed to empower each educator with the confidence and competence to teach NOAA-related topics and use NOAA’s assets to educate others.
- More than 3,700 K-12 students participated in formal education projects.
- More than 5,500 children, youth, and adults participated in informal education projects.
Statistics on resilience education awards
Since the program's inception in 2005, it has supported education initiatives that serve NOAA’s mission of science, service, and stewardship. In 2009, the program began focusing on building the climate literacy of children, youth, and adults. Over the next five years, the climate education community started to recognize that increasing awareness of climate variations and understanding of their causes were not sufficient to motivate audiences to take action to mitigate and adapt to their effects. By 2015, the program's focus shifted from funding climate literacy-focused projects to resilience education projects. These approaches are solutions-oriented and locally focused. Further, the program concentrated on projects that engage, educate, and empower participants to act individually and collectively.
The response to resilience education competitions was large. The program received 849 applications — spanning all 50 states and U.S. territories — with a total federal funding request exceeding $385 million. The magnitude of this response underscores the nation’s demand for education as a means to help build local resilience to the environmental threats monitored by NOAA. However, it also means the program’s competitions were highly competitive, with about 6% of the applications funded. To date, 47 resilience education grants have been awarded, totaling approximately $23 million.
Due to the high demand for resilience education, a previous competition in 2020 solicited projects only from the Southern and Western regions of the country. The 2022 competition continued this geographically restricted approach, soliciting projects only from the Central and Eastern regions. There was also a solicitation open to awardees from projects funded between 2015 and 2018.
Application, awards, and success rates
The bar chart below illustrates the number of applications and awards for each fiscal year that a resilience competition was held, along with the success rate for each such year. On average, the program received about 170 applications per fiscal year and funded approximately nine, resulting in a success rate of about 6%.
Resilience education grants
The bar chart below illustrates the number of new and continuing resilience education grants by fiscal year from 2016 to 2025. The chart shows an average of at least 17 resilience education projects per fiscal year. For fiscal year 2025, it displays the total number of ongoing grants.
The bar chart below illustrates the total amount of funding allocated to active recipients for resilience education for each fiscal year from 2015 to 2025. On average, these recipients received over $2 million in funding per fiscal year. The peak funding occurred in 2023, whereas the minimum was in 2025. It is important to note that the term "fiscal year" refers to the period when Congress allocates funding.
The bar chart below illustrates the environmental threats addressed by resilience education recipients in fiscal year 2025. A majority of the recipients responded to several threats concurrently. The most commonly addressed threats included inland flooding, extreme precipitation, severe weather, and water quality events.
Resilience education grants and their geographic impact
The program's resilience education grant projects have served thousands of children, youth, and adults from 40 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — including 241 counties. They have supported educational efforts to enhance participants' environmental literacy, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to aid their communities in becoming resilient to the environmental threats monitored by NOAA.
Statistics on all awards
The bar chart below shows the number of new and continuing grants by fiscal year from 2005 to 2025. The chart reveals that, on average, the program supported on average 28 active grants per fiscal year. In total, the program awarded 168 grants to 112 institutions nationwide for a total of $90,138,640 in federal funding.
The bar chart below shows the amount of federal funding received by active recipients during each fiscal year from 2005 to 2025. On average, these recipients received around $4 million per fiscal year. The highest amount of funding was provided in 2010, while the lowest amount was in 2025. It is important to note that the fiscal year refers to the period in which funding was allocated by Congress.
