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 National Ocean Sciences Bowl: Using An Academic Competition To Engage High School Students in Ocean Science Education and STEM Career Preparation
The National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) is a program that uses a quiz bowl competition, along with supporting educational activities for students and teachers, to develop the next generation of ocean scientists, stewards, and leaders. The NOSB is managed by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit and supported by 25 research institutions, federal laboratories, state Sea Grant programs, and aquaria across the United States. The NOSB develops knowledgeable ocean stewards that understand the ocean’s impact on daily life and the importance of scientific research. The program fosters use of the ocean as an interdisciplinary vehicle to teach science and mathematics and encourages its inclusion in curricula. It encourages and support the involvement of under-represented and geographically diverse communities in ocean science. Lastly, it provides students interactive education that develops critical thinking and skills for the workforce and exposes them to ocean science professionals and career opportunities. These objectives are achieved through a fast-paced and engaging quiz bowl competition that is supplemented by career mentoring events, yearly competition themes, and experiential field trips to help students gain a broader and deeper understanding of ocean science content than they would in a traditional classroom setting. The primary audience of the NOSB is high school students and teachers (formal educators serving as coaches). Secondary audiences include the academic and professional ocean science community, many of whom serve as mentors or volunteers, and students who benefit from the participation of their teachers and schools even though they have not participated in a competition. Each year, the NOSB directly engages approximately 2,000 students from 325 schools in 34 states plus the District of Columbia through 25 regional competitions. The top team from each region then competes in the national final competition, which changes location each year. The NOSB’s focus on ocean science is crucial as our nation’s need for an ocean-literate society is increasing given growing environmental challenges as well as opportunities in a sustainable ocean-based economy. Formal coursework in ocean and environmental sciences is not prevalent in most U.S. schools; thus, the NOSB fills a critical role in engaging high school students in ocean learning and expands their knowledge of the ocean’s role in issues affecting our nation’s citizens, such as a changing climate, extreme weather events, coastal resilience, food provision and security, and our economy. The NOSB supports NOAA’s Education Strategic Plan goals of a Science-Informed Society, Conservation and Stewardship, and Future Workforce. NOSB students are introduced to ocean-related STEM fields and career pathways. The NOSB also engages all participants in the competition and other program elements, resulting in ocean science and environmental awareness and increased interest in stewardship of ocean resources within these audiences. The program operates with the involvement of the ocean science research, education, and technology community, including NOAA laboratories and Sea Grant programs.
Science on a Sphere – Earth Systems Display Center at Science Museum of Virginia
The Science Museum of Virginia has assembled a unique team of federal, state, and private institutions to create The Earth System Display Center based on the Science on a Sphere (SOS) platform. The goal of the Center is to capture the visitor's attention and spur interest in climate change literacy and how impacts on a local scale can have an aggregate effect globally. Of particular significance are a docent training program to stimulate and facilitate visitor interaction with the Sphere through dialogue, and formative and summative evaluation of the impact of docent led Sphere experiences with the general public. SOS will anchor a new data display center for examining global impacts of energy consumption, stormwater management, agriculture practices, and climate change - tying together Earth system themes from four major projects now underway at the Science Museum in Richmond, Virginia. Use of NOAA data sets and the Sphere as a dynamic presentation tools coupled with flatscreens will enable the conveyance of local and statewide trends and issues into a compelling global context.
Learn, Prepare, Act – Resilient Citizens Make Resilient Communities
The Science Museum of Virginia’s three-year informal climate change resilience education project, “Your Actions Matter: Resilient Citizens Make Resilient Communities,” yielded three overarching lessons learned: 1) understand and use organizational strengths and limitations to advance resilience education, 2) Arts and Humanities are critical for resilience education, and 3) localize the story of climate change and its solutions. Our programming relied on planning and executing two, 5-week “Climate Connections” Lecture Series featuring national climate science researchers, three annual “Prepareathon” events to connect communities with emergency management personnel and services (as well as local meteorologists and climate scientists), two community-focused workshops to engage guests in building resilience to extreme precipitation and urban heat, producing dozens of radio and video programs for public dissemination of climate science concepts, hosting several “Extreme Event Challenge” facilitations for guests to assume manager roles in a crisis, designed numerous scripts and dataset playlists for daily SOS presentations, production of a large format film about cosmic perspectives on climate change, performed theatrical scripts of human sides of climate impacts, leveraged artistic expression and sonification of climate science datasets in public events and exhibits, and undertook the first citizen science climate change campaign in the Museum’s history. Our audiences regularly stretched from preschool learners to retirement-aged individuals, served many thousands from formal education and professional organizations, and that our programming regularly attracted audiences from government agencies, policymakers, fine arts institutions, and urban planners. Our audience reach easily surpassed 1.2 million people locally, nationally, and internationally, with most from metro-Richmond, Virginia. Based on formative evaluation, our substantial restructuring of our initially proposed programming model yielded high-impact educational outcomes. “Ready Row Homes: Preparing for a Hotter, Wetter Virginia” experience achieved highest educational impact of communicating both climate change science and individual resilience behaviors. Our SOS facilitations and Large Format Film, Cosmic Climate Cookbook, performed highly in communicating climate science, but relatively limited in resilience behavior. Extreme Event Challenge has high impact for communicating resilience strategies, but not as well in communicating climate science. Our informative climate science Lecture Series were comparatively limited in communicating resilience. This array of programming successes was greatly improved by collaborations with project partners: WCVE disseminated audio and video programs; George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication guided our storytelling techniques for SOS; NOAA assets (i.e., NWS, Chesapeake Bay Office, SOS Network) contributed information and speakers; Randi Korn & Associates provided evaluation; Resilient Virginia marketed programs and designed workshops; and Virginia Institute of Marine Science provided significant expertise through speakers and datasets. New, substantial project partners included Groundwork RVA (co-developed “Throwing Shade in RVA” teen program and participated in urban heat island citizen science projects); Alliance for Chesapeake Bay (provided free rain barrels and workshop educational content); Richmond City’s Department of Planning Review and Sustainability Office coordinated dissemination of outreach materials and executed urban heat island citizen science project; and Franklin Institute (helped guide development of a Virginia-specific facilitation of Ready Row Home hands-on experiences).