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.
Worldviews Network: Ecological Literacy Programming for Digital Planetariums and Beyond
The Worldviews Network - a collaboration of institutions that have pioneered Earth systems research, education and evaluation methods - is creating innovative approaches for engaging the American public in dialogues about human-induced global changes. Leveraging the power of immersive scientific visualization environments at informal science centers across the US, we are developing transformative educational processes that integrate the benefits of visual thinking, systems thinking, and design thinking. This "seeing, knowing, doing" approach empowers educators with tools and techniques that help audiences to visualize, comprehend, and address complex issues from a whole-systems perspective. The Worldviews Network will make explicit the interconnections of Earth's life support systems across time and space as well as inspire community participation in design processes by providing real-world examples of successful projects that are increasing the healthy functioning of regional and global ecosystems.
Hurricanes and Climate Change: Local Impacts and Global Systems
The Miami Science Museum, in collaboration with Ideum and the Institute for Learning Innovation, is designing and developing an interactive multi-user exhibit that allows visitors to explore the global dimensions and local impacts of climate change. The exhibit will raise public understanding about the underlying science, the human causes, and the potential impacts of climate change by combining the attraction of a 4-foot spherical display with a user-controlled interface that lets visitors control the sphere and choose from a range of global and local content they wish to explore. A particular focus is on climate-related impacts on coastal communities, including the dangers posed by rising sea level and the possibility of more intense hurricanes. The project emphasizes engagement of diverse, multigenerational audiences through development of an interface that is fully bilingual and that promotes social interaction. The open-source learning module will be adaptable by other museums, to explore climate impacts specific to their region.
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.
From Mt. Rainier to the Pacific Coast: Fostering Resilient Climate Leaders, Communities and Coastal Ecosystems
Nisqually River Foundation with partners (South Sound GREEN, Chehalis Basin Education Consortium, and Mount Rainier Institute) with support from NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region implemented their project, “From Mt. Rainier to the Pacific Coast: Fostering Resilient Climate Leaders, Communities and Coastal Ecosystems,” over 3 years, from 2016-2018. Our region faces the climate change threats of sea level rise, receding glaciers, extreme weather/flooding, ocean acidification and impacts on humans and important local resources, such as surface and groundwater, salmon, forests, and shellfish. Together we engaged more than 120 teachers and their 3,000+ students from the Nisqually, South Puget Sound and Chehalis watersheds to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts. We held three Summer Teachers Institutes to bring teachers connect teachers with local science experts in climate change impacts in the Pacific Northwest. Our 2017 Institute was held in partnership with Mount Rainier Institute, who also hosted Climate Resilient Youth Leadership Programs for 350 12-18-year olds. Participants generated and participated in Community Resilience Action Projects to conserve local ecosystems and increase resiliency in their communities to extreme weather events and changing climate. These projects included: riparian habitat restoration in the Nisqually, Chehalis, and Deschutes basins; creating recycling and composting programs on school campuses; eliminating Styrofoam from school cafeterias; creating a Migration Parade event to explore climate impacts on migratory species; the “Pick a DOT- Do One Thing - What’s your thing?” on-line videos; and the creation of high-impact environmental education art installations, to name a handful. Students also monitored local stream flows, temperatures, and water quality, building on a previous Targeted Watershed Grant from the EPA and a data set that goes back to 1992. NOAA’s mission of Service was supported as teachers and students shared their knowledge in their classrooms, with school districts, at community meetings, and through social media. NOAA assets used included the NW Marine Fisheries staff, Data in the Classroom, CoCoRaHS, NOAA-NASA Cloud Watcher Chart, NOAA’s Climate Literacy Principles, Beat the Uncertainty game, Game of Floods, Thermal Expansion label, the Marine Mammals of the US West Coast, and more. Other local contributing partners include the Nisqually Indian Tribe, the Squaxin Tribe, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Nisqually Land Trust, Thurston Conservation District and Capital Region Educational Service District 113.