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.

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Public Libraries Advancing Community Engagement (PLACE)

Califa offsite link · San Mateo, California
Funding: $499,919
Year: 2015
The Public Libraries Advancing Community Engagement (PLACE) project was built on the idea that librarians can play a significant role in increasing a community's climate resiliency — the ability to recover quickly from or plan for and anticipate weather impacts. PLACE paired about 50 librarians in rural and under-resourced urban communities across the U.S. with local NOAA/NWS scientists to engage over 1,500 youth and adults in a series of public library programs tailored to the local geography.

The Public Libraries Advancing Community Engagement (PLACE) project was built on the idea that librarians can play a significant role in increasing a community's climate resiliency — the ability to recover quickly from or plan for and anticipate weather impacts. PLACE paired about 50 librarians in rural and under-resourced urban communities across the U.S. with local NOAA/NWS scientists to engage over 1,500 youth and adults in a series of public library programs tailored to the local geography. The programs used popular books and human-interest videos to stimulate discussion and critical thinking about resilient responses to environmental changes and extreme weather events, as well as introducing relevant NOAA tools and resources for data access and resiliency planning. For both audience members and librarians, PLACE enhanced environmental literacy specific to their own region’s geography, vulnerabilities, and threats, toward the longer-term goal of helping them to build local resilience.

Award Number: NA15SEC0080008
Grant Dates: 10/01/2015 to 01/30/2018
PI: Paula Mackinnon
State: California   County:   San Mateo District: CA15
Partners: NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) · NOAA Climate Program Office (CPO) · NOAA Office of Education ·

Science-on-a-Sphere Programming: Presenting NOAA Science at the Maryland Science Center, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and in the National Traveling Exhibition "Water Planet"

Science Museum of Minnesota offsite link · Saint Paul, Minnesota
Funding: $219,999
Year: 2005
Using the relative strengths of each museum, the Science On a Sphere® Partnership between the Maryland Science Center and the Science Museum of Minnesota has developed two complementary exhibit approaches to Science On a Sphere® (SOS). Audiences interacting with SOS are able to observe global connections in geophysical phenomena not possible with any two dimensional representation of the Earth. The goal of the project is for museum visitors, particularly underserved audiences, to comprehend how human activities are influencing global processes now and might do so in the future.

Using the relative strengths of each museum, the Science On a Sphere® Partnership between the Maryland Science Center and the Science Museum of Minnesota has developed two complementary exhibit approaches to Science On a Sphere® (SOS). Audiences interacting with SOS are able to observe global connections in geophysical phenomena not possible with any two dimensional representation of the Earth. The goal of the project is for museum visitors, particularly underserved audiences, to comprehend how human activities are influencing global processes now and might do so in the future. The project also tests new partnership models for working with NOAA and other science research organizations to broaden the educational impact on all groups.

Award Number: NA05SEC4691009
Grant Dates: 10/01/2005 to 09/30/2007
PI: Patrick Hamilton
State: Minnesota   County:   Ramsey District: MN04
Partners: American Museum of Natural History · Maryland Science Center · Augsburg College · Macalester College · Field Museum of Natural History · Great Lakes Science Center · Johns Hopkins University · Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) · Morgan State University · San Diego Natural History Museum · University of Maryland / Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research · University of Maryland (UMD) Baltimore County · University of Saint Catherine · University of Saint Thomas · WMAR-Television ·

Science-on-a-Sphere Installation: Presenting NOAA Science at the Maryland Science Center, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and in the National Traveling Exhibition "Water Planet"

Science Museum of Minnesota offsite link · Saint Paul, Minnesota
Funding: $170,000
Year: 2005
This award supports the installation of a Science On a Sphere® in two museums comprising the SOS Partnership®, a collaboration between the Maryland Science Center (Baltimore) and the Science Museum of Minnesota (Saint Paul). Each of the two museum installations will take advantage of the wide variety of NOAA data sets that Science On a Sphere® (SOS) projects onto a six-foot sphere, creating unique, animated, whole-planet views of real-time, past and forecasted, weather, climate and geophysical processes, and many other dramatic visualizations of the whole Earth.

This award supports the installation of a Science On a Sphere® in two museums comprising the SOS Partnership®, a collaboration between the Maryland Science Center (Baltimore) and the Science Museum of Minnesota (Saint Paul). Each of the two museum installations will take advantage of the wide variety of NOAA data sets that Science On a Sphere® (SOS) projects onto a six-foot sphere, creating unique, animated, whole-planet views of real-time, past and forecasted, weather, climate and geophysical processes, and many other dramatic visualizations of the whole Earth.

Award Number: NA05SEC4691012
Grant Dates: 10/01/2005 to 09/30/2007
PI: Patrick Hamilton
State: Minnesota   County:   Ramsey District: MN04
Partners: American Museum of Natural History · Maryland Science Center · Maryland Science Center · Field Museum of Natural History · Great Lakes Science Center · San Diego Natural History Museum ·

Planet Earth Decision Theater

Science Museum of Minnesota offsite link · Saint Paul, Minnesota
Funding: $504,386
Year: 2010
Through the Planet Earth Decision Theater project, the Science Museum of Minnesota and its partners will upgrade the museum's current SOS exhibit with new SOS learning experiences, produce for the SOS community a new SOS film about the role of humans as the dominant agents of global change and two new presenter-led SOS programs based on the film with one version utilizing an audience feedback mechanism called iClickers.

Through the Planet Earth Decision Theater project, the Science Museum of Minnesota and its partners will upgrade the museum's current SOS exhibit with new SOS learning experiences, produce for the SOS community a new SOS film about the role of humans as the dominant agents of global change and two new presenter-led SOS programs based on the film with one version utilizing an audience feedback mechanism called iClickers. SMM also will complement its Planet Earth Decision Theater and the Maryland Science Center's SOS exhibit with the addition of Rain Table (a new interactive scientific visualization platform) at both locations to further reinforce the Anthropocene messages of the new SOS film and programs. SMM will conduct extensive evaluations of the new SOS film, programs and Rain Tables. SMM's partners on this project include the NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab, University of Minnesota's National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics, University of Minnesota's Antarctic Geospatial Information Center, University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, Maryland Science Center, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Institute for Learning Innovation, George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication, and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois-Chicago.

Award Number: NA10SEC0080021
Grant Dates: 10/01/2010 to 09/30/2014
PI: Patrick Hamilton
State: Minnesota   County:   Ramsey District: MN04
Partners: Boonshoft Museum of Discovery · Institute for Learning Innovation · Maryland Science Center · Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) Chicago · Lawrence Hall of Science · University of Colorado Boulder / Fiske Planetarium · Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts · George Mason University / Center for Climate Change Communication (4C) · University of Minnesota / Institute on the Environment · University of Minnesota / National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED) ·