Explore awards
Use the filter menu and interactive map to explore the past competitions offered and grants awarded through the Environmental Literacy Program.
To learn more about project findings and outcomes, view the summaries of our grantees’ summative evaluation reports.
Empowering Climate Change Resiliency through Education in an Underserved Community
Understanding climate change and its exacerbating effects on local environmental phenomena (e.g., increase in frequency and/or intensity of drought, ocean acidification, water shortages, degraded fisheries) and how to create resiliency is critical for underserved communities as they are disproportionately impacted by these hazards and yet, have the least capacity to actively respond. To address this issue, Ocean Discovery Institute and its partners will build understanding of climate change and impacts on local hazards, human-nature interactions, and individual and community capacity for resilience through place-based education in the underserved community of City Heights, San Diego, CA. This project, titled “Empowering Climate Change Resiliency through Education in an Underserved Community,” will involve a wide range of partners, including California Sea Grant, the California Nevada Climate Applications Program, NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego Canyonlands, RECON Environmental, Inc., and the San Diego Unified Port District. Project activities encompass the design, piloting, and implementation of multi-grade level, integrated curricula that incorporate hands-on student climate science research, innovative solution building, and teacher professional development. This project will serve 1,500 middle school students annually and is expected to increase students’ understanding of scientific concepts and processes and human-nature interactions, improve their ability to make science-informed decisions, and contribute to local resilience efforts.
HEARTForce: Hazard Education, Awareness & Resilience Taskforce
Communities in Colorado are increasingly experiencing major disruptions from environmental hazards, such as wildfire, flood, and drought. With this rise in hazardous events, there is a pressing need for communities to increase their resilience. An interdisciplinary team from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Education & Outreach Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed and implemented an innovative, action-oriented youth engagement project that targets rural Colorado students, teachers, and communities. Our engagement model 15 empowers youth i) to envision community resilience through immersive scenario-based role play based using a solid understanding of the relevant science, ii) to learn about natural hazards through engaging place-based lessons, iii) to initiate conversations about hazard preparedness from within communities, and iv) to develop and implement student-led resilience action projects and participate in community resilience expos. A needs assessment disseminated to Colorado teachers guided the project team in the development of all instructional materials and allowed for customizing the content to teacher needs. The project team developed three units (one of wildfire, flood, and drought) for middle and high school students that consist of three parts: place-based data-focused lessons to introduce the hazard, a scenario-based role-play game with a focus on youth empowerment, and a design challenge for students to develop an idea for a resilience action project. Teachers can choose to teach any or all parts and invite community resilience stakeholders and practitioners to share their work with their students, and support students in designing and implementing action projects. Some teachers and students chose to host a Community Resilience Expo, where they invited the public to learn more about the hazard and what resources exist in the community to help prepare for the hazard. The project aimed to accomplished the following three objectives: 1) Increase Colorado secondary teachers’ knowledge and confidence to teach about local natural hazards, and to facilitate discussions about community resilience; 2) Increase Colorado youth’s understanding of natural hazards, their community’s vulnerability, and their involvement in resilience planning efforts, and 3) Enhance the capacity and empowerment of young people in Colorado to engage in dialogue with their peers, families, and community stakeholders about community resilience issues and identify, develop, and implement resilience actions. The project evaluation explored the efficacy of the program model and studied the impact of the project activities on students and teachers. The project filled a critical gap in Colorado’s resilience planning which does not include teachers and youth. The project was guided by partners from the NOAA RISA program Western Water Assessment, seven NOAA science advisors, and was implemented together with over 40 community partners, school partners and collaborators from across Colorado. Over the course of the four-year program, the project trained and supported 88 teachers, engaged nearly 2,000 students, and resulted in 9 Resilience Expo events across rural Colorado.
HEARTForce: Resilient Colorado
Communities in Colorado are increasingly experiencing major disruptions from environmental hazards, such as fire, flood, and drought. Low-income housing neighborhoods and vulnerable community members in under-resourced rural areas are often disproportionately impacted by these hazards. With the rise in hazardous events across the state under a changing climate, there is a pressing need for communities to become more resilient through better preparation and planning. The Hazard Education, Awareness and Resilience Task Force (HEART Force) program, facilitated by the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Education & Outreach group at CU Boulder, empowers rural secondary students and teachers to act as the change agents to build community resilience against natural hazards. With continued funding, we will continue to support teachers statewide to implement HEART Force curriculum, a place-based curriculum that uses authentic data sources, scenario-based role-play games and the Earth Force process to inspire civic action. We will also be supporting four classrooms across Colorado to go deeper with the curriculum through a quarter or semester-long elective course, by selecting a vulnerable neighborhood to partner with and planning action steps together with more support from CIRES staff, community partners, and local emergency managers.