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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.

The National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI) is working with The Marine Mammal Center, Knology, and the Frameworks Institute to build national capacity for evidence-based climate communication through innovative training programs and a community of practice that engages educators, scientists, community activists, and communities of color. Nearly two-thirds of Americans talk about climate change only occasionally or not at all, resulting in a lack of action to address one of the most critical issues of our time. The National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation has worked for more than a decade to advance the science and practice of effective public communication around climate change by developing, evaluating, and deploying communications tools that employ both cutting-edge climate science and communication research to increase both knowledge of climate change and a willingness to engage in climate action. The network’s community of practice offers resources, events, and activities to support members’ social, emotional, and intellectual growth, sustaining their long-term commitment to activate the public around climate action. Despite many successes and impact shown through previous programs, gaps still exist in the availability of these messages to communities across the country, and an intentional focus on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion is critical to ensure that communications and proposed solutions are accessible and appropriate for marginalized communities. New lessons connecting justice, equity, diversity and inclusion will be developed and tested by a justice and equity team, as well as outside experts. These new lessons will be included in all training programs, including an existing online course focused on building awareness for climate communicators, and a new virtual and in-person training course for climate communication trainers in the Southeastern United States. Through these training programs, a new training platform, and the support of a new project coordinator, the network will welcome new climate trainers and communicators, while building a stronger community of practice nationwide.

Creation Justice Ministries is partnering with Interfaith Power & Light chapters in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina on the project “Participatory Education in Faith Communities for Climate Resilience.” Coastal faith communities can be key assets to building resilience in their communities, but often do not have the resources or investment from resilience agencies to build the necessary environmental literacy. The goal of this project is to create networks of faith communities that are educated on the realities of climate change and able to serve as hubs of social and physical resilience for their communities – helping them better weather the physical, social, and spiritual storms of the climate crisis. This project will engage faith communities in social learning on the connections between their experience of extreme weather and the science of climate change; facilitate a series of workshops in which faith communities engage with local scientists, planners, and decision-makers around climate resilience to extreme weather and climate change; and guide congregations through a resilience implementation and educational project. The project team will work with predominantly Black, Indigenous, and other faith communities of color in Mathews County, VA, Wicomico County, MD, and Beaufort and Pamlico Counties, NC. The outcomes of this project are (1) increased social cohesion and networks of accountability between local faith communities, planners, and decision-makers, (2) faith community members educated with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to reason about the interaction of human and natural systems globally and locally, with a specific focus on the inequities of climate change vulnerabilities, (3) faith community members empowered and prepared to educate their communities about climate impacts, participate in civic processes around climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience, and serve as trusted community leaders when climate disasters occur, and (4) congregations with the infrastructure to continue integrating resilience and climate change education in the life of their church and local community. This project is integrally connected to NOAA’s mission of science, service, and stewardship. By intersecting the service- and stewardship-oriented work of faith communities with the science of resilience agencies and local universities, members of faith communities can be more resilient and adaptive to the risks and hazards associated with climate change. Other project partners include NOAA Regional Climate Services Center, NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resilience, Mathews County Board of Supervisors, Maryland CoastSmart Communities, Duke University Marine Lab’s (DUML) Community Science Initiative, Environmental Finance Center (EFC) at the University of Maryland, and Virginia Institute of Marine Science (William & Mary).

This project will create a new educational tool for river awareness in the United States through a mobile device application called Raindrop. Raindrop traces the flow of water from the user's home location to a downstream watershed location. Raindrop is part of a larger installation named FLOW (Can You See the River?), which joins the cognitive power of science with the affective power of the arts by creating virtual and physical spaces for river awareness in the White River watershed in Indianapolis, IN. In addition to the flow path, Raindrop functionality includes watershed context and physical marker mapping, flow path water quality indicators, utilization of NOAA weather feeds and alerts, weather and climate comparisons, storm event size implications, and guidance on watershed restoration actions. Artist-designed physical markers are strategically located in the watershed to direct the virtual user to physical areas of interest.