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.
Interpreting Global, Half-hourly Cloud Observations to Promote Weather and Climate Literacy
AMNH will use NOAA weather satellite data to annotate 72 high definition (HD) video time-series global cloud cover visualizations using thermal infrared brightness temperature data acquired by five geostationary satellites and joined into global mosaics at half-hourly intervals. The HD visualizations will be used in informal and formal education activities and will be made available on the Web. These media pieces will be used for informal education activities at AMNH and 28 other informal science institutions (ISI) around the United States . The target population of visitors to subscribing ISIs is currently ten million and is projected to be over 15 million by the end of the grant. The HD visualizations will be used in formal settings, as well. Fifteen schools throughout New York City with large numbers of new English Language Learners will be targeted and professional development for teachers of ELL students will be provided through programs at AMNH as well. AMNH's effort focuses on weather and climate patterns that will be visible in the cloud-data visualizations. All viewers of the media will learn about general circulation patterns and changes in phase of water associated with the hydrologic cycle.
SOS Ocean-Atmosphere Literacy Partnership
The SOS Ocean-Atmosphere Literacy Partnership is a collaboration among the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, NY; Maryland Science Center (MSC) in Baltimore, MD; and Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in St. Paul, MN. This collaboration will create two six-minute programs and two 30-minute live presentations for the spherical display systems, including NOAA's Science on a Sphere. The SMM will produce "Ocean-Atmosphere Thermodynamics"; the AMNH will produce, "Tropical Cyclones: Theory, Models, and Observations."
Exploring Earth Systems: Expanding Data Visualization Experiences for Museum Learners
The American Museum of Natural History, in association with several NOAA entities, will be creating a suite of media products employing visualization of Earth-observation data as well as associated professional development programs to expand educational experiences in informal science institutions nationwide. Interactive versions of the visualizations will also be disseminated via the AMNH website. Visualization assets will be distributed to NOAA for utilization on climate.gov and Science on a Sphere. The creation of training programs and educational materials for informal education professionals will enhance the experience and efficacy of the data visualizations as tools to understand and build stewardship of Earth systems.
Climate Strong—Building Tribal Youth Leadership for Climate Resiliency
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in partnership with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, 1854 Treaty Authority, University of Wisconsin Extension’s G-WOW program, and Lake Superior Estuarine Research Reserve are proud to provide the Climate Strong-Building Tribal Youth Leadership for Climate Resiliency program. Our three-year project aims to increase the knowledge and readiness of middle to high school students to deal with the impacts of extreme weather and environmental hazards that face the Ojibwe Ceded Territories (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) and build capacity for increased climate change community resiliency curriculum in the classroom. Climate change impacts everyone, but for indigenous peoples it threatens culturally significant traditions, such as wild rice harvesting, that relies on sustainable fish, plant, and wildlife resources. These resources are critical for subsistence, spiritual and cultural needs, and treaty rights. Culturally relevant, place-based education is an important tool to involve students, in particular, underrepresented students, in developing critical thinking skills to assess the issue of community resiliency to extreme weather events and engaging in action to help resolve it. In order to achieve our objectives, we will aim our educational efforts toward youth first, as well as reaching the communities we serve. Each year, six residential youth camps (18 total) will be hosted within the Ojibwe Ceded Territories. Each three-day camp will be focused on investigating issues of community resiliency, adaption, and mitigation associated with increasing extreme weather events as well as natural environmental hazards. Camps will use place-based, experiential lessons to teach resiliency issues demonstrated by climate change effects on Ojibwe culturally important natural resources. Our project will train formal and informal educators throughout the Ojibwe Ceded Territories on how to use indigenous climate curriculum using tribal traditional ecological knowledge and NOAA assets to investigate community climate resiliency issues. Using both teacher “train the trainer” workshops and our camps, this project will create a network of formal K-12 and informal educators trained to become leaders in providing culturally relevant climate resiliency outreach to students. We will increase community resiliency literacy through six community outreach events each year (18 total) that will highlight resiliency issues facing our region and the research being done on landscape and ecological vulnerabilities through NOAA and tribal assets. Our goals are increased community resiliency literacy and adaptation of stewardship behaviors that reduce climate change impacts and increases adaption and mitigation behaviors by our participants. These behaviors will help increase stewardship practices reducing extreme weather impacts affecting the sustainability of culturally relevant resources, thereby preserving important cultural, spiritual, subsistence, and treaty rights practices.
Envirosphere Educational Project
McWane ScienceCenter (McWSC) is a non-profit, interactive science museum committed to showing the public how science and technology enrich their lives and help them solve problems. McWSC has a goal of extending the power of experiential learning to as many people as possible, particularly those who would otherwise not be able to do so on their own. McWane’s environmental education initiative, the Envirosphere Educational Project, uses NOAA’s Science on a Sphere (SOS) to provide environmental education and workforce development programs for an estimated 200,000 people. This number includes the general public, school groups from across the region, and 2,500 children in low-income communities from across the state of Alabama. All visitors have the opportunity to go to the SOS exhibit and participate in environmental education programs led by McWSC Education Staff. Each program corresponds to one of the SOS data sets and to the Alabama Course of Study Standards for elementary and secondary schools. The intended outcomes of the Project are to make complex environmental science concepts more accessible to people of all ages; to provide educational opportunities to children who would otherwise not have access to this type of information; to partner with local and state academic institutions, school boards and municipalities to improve environmental science curricula and awareness; and to increase the visitor’s knowledge of and pique his/her interest in science and its related real-world applications.
Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities (CSCRC)
The "Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities” (CSCRC) project led by the Museum of Science, Boston in partnership with Arizona State University, Northeastern University, SciStarter, and the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net), engaged thousands of public participants around the United States in participatory data collection and community deliberation about four climate-related hazards: heat waves, sea level rise, extreme precipitation, and drought. The aims of the project were to increase resilience to extreme weather and environmental hazards through the inclusion of community-generated data, local knowledge, and community values into civic planning, and to increasing capacity among science centers and informal educators for including publics in resilience planning and data collection. The project formulated, iterated, and evaluated a science-to-civics model that included agenda-setting, decision-making and policy forming phases. These activities were developed and implemented by educators at 30 US science centers in collaboration with local resilience planners. Groups of participants in each community collected, analyzed, and shared data about locally relevant hazards; learned about vulnerabilities through visualizations of geospatial data; participated in deliberative, participatory resilience planning and shared perspectives about resilience strategies and their societal and environmental trade-offs; formulated community resilience plans that brought forth diverse perspectives; and presented their findings and recommendations to resilience planners and publics. Participants contributed community-generated data such as urban heat island maps, precipitation data from rain gauges, or documented extreme events through photos of their communities. These data were visualized through StoryMaps, exhibited at local libraries and fairs, and used to facilitate community discussions about the tradeoffs of proposed resilience strategies. Many of the deliberation and participatory science activities pivoted to online formats in response to the pandemic. These digital engagement activities provided new and unanticipated challenges, but also new opportunities connect project participants and capture participant engagement in powerful ways. Our project evaluation found that citizen science and Forum participants increased their knowledge around climate hazards, resilience strategies and their tradeoffs. Participants also increased their confidence and interest in engaging with climate topics, including ways to take action around community climate hazards, contributing to citizen science efforts, and contributing to public policy. Museum professionals found that the project positively impacted their ability to implement science to civics activities, felt supported by the trainings and materials, and planned to continue implementing these programs provided they had continued access to materials, tools, and experts. Many of the project materials are freely available for download at nisenet.org/cscrc and the local project portals documenting the citizen science activities can be found at scistarter.org/noaa.