Title,Recipient,Competition,"Fiscal Year","Award Number","Federal Funding","Principal Investigator",State,City,County,District,Lat/Long,"Grant Dates",Abstract,Partners "Environmental Literacy for Alaskan Climate Stewards (ELACS)","Chugach School District","2018: ELG for Community Resilience to Extreme Weather Events and Environmental Hazards",2018,NA18SEC0080011,"$499,888","Douglas Penn",Alaska,Anchorage,"Anchorage Borough",AK00,"61.13636, -149.84821","2018-10-01T00:00:00 - 2022-05-31T00:00:00","The Environmental Literacy for Alaska Climate Stewards (ELACS) project served 84 K-12 educators and 1,080 Alaskan students in predominantly Alaska Native coastal villages. The project provided opportunities to build understandings of how climate change impacts local environments, increase overall climate literacy, and contribute to community resilience. Participants were primarily from the Chugach School District and the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, both located in the southcentral region of Alaska. Students and teachers in the Aleutian Region School District, Nome City Schools, and the North Slope Borough School District (southwestern, northwestern, and northern Alaska, respectively) participated to a lesser extent in novel learning experiences made available through collaborative partnerships that emerged during the grant period. The project focused on three areas: teacher professional development, classroom instruction, and community engagement. Professional development included training in project-based learning and co-teaching/coaching sessions with master teachers. Classroom instruction engaged students in meaningful, innovative, place-based, project-based learning, and citizen-science activities focused on site and community needs. Students monitored their local environments, built or otherwise used ocean observation systems, collected data, and represented their new knowledge through presentations and art. Significant outcomes included student work on the relationship between phytoplankton and salmon conservation in Chenega Bay, a Living History Project that engaged community members and elders with traditional ecological knowledge in Tatitlek, and engagement in weather and environmental monitoring plans for the community of Whittier (potentially threatened by tsunamis generated by unstable slopes in a nearby fjord). Students shared active research regarding impacts and available resources. ELACS aligned with and supported NOAA’s educational mission by helping the target populations understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts. This project promoted students’ environmental stewardship and a deeper understanding of a changing environment at both local and global levels. Throughout the four-year project, students and teachers worked with scientists and experts in education, climate change, and marine science using project-based learning approaches and educational technology. A notable (but not exhaustive) list of partners included researchers from NOAA’s Kasitsna Bay Laboratory, the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and the International Arctic Research Center (both at the University of Alaska Fairbanks), the Polar Science Center (University of Washington), Ground Truth Trekking, and the Center for Alaska Coastal Studies. Educational consultants included STEMisEd, Teknikio, NexMap, Build-A-Buoy, and EcoArt Expeditions. Corporate and non-profit partners included WeatherFlow, Inc., Batelle, Inc., Cook Inlet Tribal Council, and Alaska Science Teachers Association.","University of Alaska (UA-Fairbanks) / College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) / Alaska, National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) Kachemak Bay, University of Alaska (UA-Fairbanks) / International Arctic Research Center, Washington College / Center for Environment & Society, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) / Kasitsna Bay Laboratory, U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System / AOOS, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, Chugachmiut, City of Whittier, Tatitlek Village Ira Council, Chenega Bay IRA Council, U.S. National Ice Center, Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council, Battelle, Inc., University of Washington (UW) / Polar Science Center, Weather Flow, Teknikio, Ground Truth Trekking, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Alaska Science Teachers Association, Alaska Conservation Foundation, STEMisED, NextMap" "Resilience from the Youth Up","Michigan Sea Grant","2018: ELG for Community Resilience to Extreme Weather Events and Environmental Hazards",2018,NA18SEC0080006,"$497,658","Silvia Newell",Michigan,"Ann Arbor",Washtenaw,MI06,"42.27584, -83.7427","2018-10-01T00:00:00 - 2023-09-30T00:00:00","As climate impacts ratchet up across the United States, the Great Lakes region tends to fly under the national radar. While the Great Lakes do not experience hurricanes, rising sea levels, or large-scale wildfires, the local climate has become increasingly erratic in recent years. The region, however, is one of the most unprepared in the country to cope with these impacts. A recent Grosvenor report (2014) on climate resilience among 50 global cities ranked Detroit last among 11 U.S. cities for adaptability and only better than three cities for overall resilience, which incorporates both climate vulnerability and adaptability factors. Of U.S. cities with more than 100,000 residents, Detroit has the highest percentage of African-American residents (80.7%, U.S. Census 2016). Still recovering from bankruptcy, the city also has a 39% poverty rate, which impacts over 56% of children (ibid). These socio-economic factors, coupled with other environmental justice concerns, such as a centrally located incinerator and an asthma rate of 15.5% among adults resulting in over 3,000 hospitalizations annually, make Detroit residents particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. This project will address the urgent need to increase resilience by working with high school students and teachers in Detroit and southeast Michigan to increase their awareness of climate change and develop projects that help their schools and neighborhoods become resilient to increased occurrence and intensity of heat waves, storm events, and flooding. Using NOAA assets, including GLISA localized climate data and Sea Grant outreach and education expertise, high school students and teachers will partner with climate scientists to explore local climate impacts firsthand and to develop resilience strategies and projects that protect vulnerable households and neighborhoods and contribute to broader sustainability initiatives. The City of Detroit seeks this involvement as it ramps up a new Office of Sustainability and seeks proposals to develop the city's first Sustainability Framework. The effort is a partnership with EcoWorks, Great Lakes Integrated Sciences + Assessments (GLISA), Michigan Sea Grant (MISG), Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition (SEMIS), Eastern Michigan University, Civic Research Services, Inc., and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In each of the next three years, 200 students from various high schools in the Detroit and Ypsilanti areas will participate in weekly activities related to the grant. The four primary objectives of the program include: 1) Engage students in assessing and quantifying climate vulnerabilities of their schools, neighborhoods, and surrounding community. 2) Using a place-based education (PBE) model, prepare educators to engage students in creating plans and completing projects that increase community resilience. 3) Empower high school students to teach residents about local climate impacts and increase understanding of resilience strategies to mitigate extreme weather events or other environmental hazards. 4) Contribute to the completion and implementation of local sustainability and climate action plans in Southeast Michigan.","Eastern Michigan University, National Wildlife Federation (NWF) / Great Lakes Regional Center, Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks / The Wild Center, NOAA National Weather Service (NWS), NOAA Climate Program Office (CPO), Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition (SEMIS), EcoWorks, Great Lakes Integrated Sciences + Assessments (GLISA), Ypsilanti Public School District, City of Detroit / Office of Sustainability, City of Ypsilanti, Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan State University (MSU) Extension, Washtenaw County Administration / Water Resources Commissioner's Office, Huron-Clinton Metroparks / Lake Erie, American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP), Ann Arbor Public Schools, Detroit City Council / Green Task Force, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, Michigan Climate Action Network, Detroit Greenways Coalition, WSP Detroit, Michigan Aerospace Corporation, Porter Family Foundation, Izzie, LLC, Huron River Watershed Council, Clinton River Watershed Council, Charter Township of Ypsilanti, Detroit Mayor's Office Administration / Department of Neighborhoods"