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.
Raindrop: An Innovative Educational Tool for River Awareness
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.
The Global Decision Room: An Interactive Science-on-a-Sphere Installation
The Orlando Science Center has assembled a project team to create a unique environmental science learning tool: THE GLOBAL DECISION ROOM. Founded on, and enhancing, the Science On a Sphere (SOS) digital globe, the Global Decision Room is an interactive theatre that puts visitors in the role of being decision makers on behalf of the behavior of large populations on the planet. The results of global decisions relating to the environment are seen played out on SOS. The interactive strategy that is created for the Global Decision Room will be flexible and well integrated into the SOS software platform, making it possible to design other educational story scenarios that can use the same system. The Global Decision Room is designed as a multi-use, high impact, exciting content delivery platform. This proposal is based on a well developed initial educational premise, but the resulting construction of the Global Decision Room will be the perfect environment for other educational topics of interest to NOAA's outreach strategy. As new datasets become available in the future, new interactive stories will be developed for the Global Decision Room. The Orlando project brings with it significant additional funding from the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Orlando Utilities Commission, and the Florida Hydrogen Initiative, which will greatly leverage the funding from NOAA. Partners in the project include a strong technical team from the University of Central Florida and the Florida Solar Energy Center, interactive digital media experts from the Institute for Simulation and Training, the creative design team "i.d.e.a.s." located at Disney-MGM Studios, and the XhibitNet interactive multimedia design team.
Summer Research Program for Science Teachers
This project that will increase the knowledge and research skills of middle and high school earth science and environmental science teachers. By doing so, these teachers will be better able to elevate their students' overall interest and literacy in science, improve their understanding of ecosystem and sustainable development principles, and improve their stewardship of ecosystems. The teachers will learn how the tools, techniques, and information services are used by NOAA and its partners to improve ecosystem-based management. This will enable students to appreciate better the dynamism and excitement of these disciplines. This program targets schools with under-served minority populations.
Summer Research Program for Science Teachers
This project that will increase the knowledge and research skills of middle and high school earth science and environmental science teachers. By doing so, these teachers will be better able to elevate their students' overall interest and literacy in science, improve their understanding of ecosystem and sustainable development principles, and improve their stewardship of ecosystems. The teachers will learn how the tools, techniques, and information services are used by NOAA and its partners to improve ecosystem-based management. This will enable students to appreciate better the dynamism and excitement of these disciplines. This program targets schools with under-served minority populations.