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.
Science Shop for Community Resilience
The Academy of Natural Sciences (ANS) of Drexel University is integrating multi-modal environmental education into a participatory research program with the goal of enhancing local resilience to climate change in Philadelphia neighborhoods impacted by environmental racism. Established in the Netherlands in the 1970s, the “Science Shop” is a model for community-based participatory research now found widely throughout the European Union. Science Shops are not “shops” in the traditional sense of the word; they represent the institutionalization—typically within universities—of spaces to help create novel applied knowledge in equal partnership with organizations that lack the capacity, resources, or expertise to carry out such research independently. SS4CR will adopt this model to connect community leaders and residents in Philadelphia with the educational, scientific, technical, and legal resources of NOAA, ANS, Drexel, City of Philadelphia, and other regional, state, and federal experts, as needed, in order build capacity among communities in carrying out impactful climate education, research, and policy advocacy. SS4CR will initiate collaboration with three Philadelphia-based community organizations (CBO) to undertake a deep exploration of local climate and environmental quality issues through co-designed, year-long programming that focuses on the exchange of local and “expert” knowledges and the creation of trusting relationships. Facilitated knowledge sharing activities may include, among others: “serious games,” asset mapping, deliberative forums, and hand-on, kit-based workshops. Over the 2nd and 3rd program year, SS4CR will build on this foundation to frame and articulate a unique research request with each CBO that includes methods, timeline, distribution plan, and expected outcomes, to be undertaken in partnership with community leaders and residents. SS4CR is focused on locally tailored, community driven climate solutions and building community capacity to enact those solutions. Through SS4CR, all parties should increase their knowledge of local climate hazards and their impacts on Philadelphia’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods; improve their ability to reason about and conduct research into the ways that human and natural systems interact; increase their awareness of the effectiveness and potential trade-offs of different resilience interventions for Philadelphia communities; and build capacity in effectively translating knowledge into action.
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"
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.
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"
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 ( St. 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.
Exploring Inner Space: Linking Aquariums with Ocean Scientists
This program is a pilot project and collaborative effort to develop partnerships and educational programming using state of the art technology. The project partnership is comprised of a leading ocean science research and education institution, the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography and its new state of the art Inner Space Center (ISC), and two strong national ocean science education networks: the National Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) Network and NOAA's Office of Exploration and Research (NOAA-OER) Education Alliance. In addition, two partner sites will serve as proof of concept sites and education hubs - Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration (CT) and South Carolina Aquarium (SC), both affiliated with COSEE, the Coastal Ecosystem Learning Center Network (CELC), and NOAA-OER. Through this initiative, the ISC will install new Exploration Command Stations (ECSs) and enhance Ocean Today kiosks at the partner sites, strategically selected aquariums. Through this pilot project, the ECSs and kiosks (modeled after the original Ocean Today kiosk in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall) will form an Ocean Interpretive Station at the partner sites. The ISC will provide live links from the Center's facilities to the newly installed ECSs and kiosks using feeds from various remote Ocean Exploration platforms, including the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer and the exploration vessel, E/V Nautilus. The project's Content Development Team (CDT) will develop associated educational materials for use in public programs at the partner sites.