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The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies and the Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve will partner with tribal organizations in southcentral Alaska to foster and support community-driven educational and monitoring programs that will safeguard healthy marine resources and abundant freshwater resources against rapid, ongoing climatic changes affecting Alaska Native communities. The goal is to increase environmental literacy and resiliency within southcentral Alaska’s most vulnerable communities through workshops that enhance community-based monitoring programs and engage tribal Environmental Coordinators, local educators, and high school students in culturally responsive hazards education. Through the Southcentral Alaska Collaborative for Resilience through Education and Decision-making (SACRED) project, communities will establish sustainable long-term environmental monitoring programs and educational opportunities that involve youth in reducing risks from marine toxins and ensuring continued access to traditional foods and safe drinking water.

The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is located at the mouth of the Norwalk River where it flows into Long Island Sound. Its mission is to inspire people to appreciate and protect the Sound and the global environment. As global climate change increases, extreme storms and sea levels continue to rise and a growing percentage of the 23 million people living within 50 miles of the Sound are directly affected by severe weather events, providing a timely opportunity to educate students, teachers, and the public about community resilience. From 2017-2020, the Aquarium developed and delivered an innovative three-session climate resilience education program to more than 2,000 middle and high school students in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The Sound Resilience student experience began in the classroom, where students learned about the impacts of hurricanes and coastal storms on their communities and used a hands-on “beach in a box” to model the effectiveness of built structures like seawalls and natural resilience features including salt marshes and oyster reefs. Then, during a two-hour research cruise on the Aquarium’s hybrid-electric research vessel, Spirit of the Sound, students collaborated to map their home coastlines from the water: identifying vulnerable locations from apartment buildings to power plants, as well as the existing resilience structures protecting their coast. On the vessel they also stepped into the role of climate scientists, conducting real-time weather and water sampling, including collecting and examining photosynthetic plankton that absorb carbon and help to slow down the effects of climate change. The third program session, back in the classroom, sent students on a design and decision-making journey, in which they compared their collaboratively created resilience map with flood-risk maps of their hometown, then worked together to identify gaps in resilience infrastructure and design a resilience plan for their community. As a result of Sound Resilience – Get on Board!, there were significant gains in students’ understanding of resilience science and their own sense of agency in creating a resilient future for their communities. Participants also reported deeper understanding of, and connection to, the Sound’s coastal ecosystems, which serve to buffer storm waves, sequester carbon, and protect communities from extreme weather and climate change. The Aquarium also developed and delivered a teacher professional development workshop focusing on effective and standards-aligned methods of teaching climate change, resilience, and environmental justice issues. Finally, an interactive experience was created for guests in one of the Aquarium’s most highly trafficked spaces. It includes a series of twenty-foot map projections of Long Island Sound showing present and future vulnerabilities and resilience methods, as well as a touch-screen kiosk where guests can interact with NOAA resources showing the risks that floods and sea level rise pose to their home communities. Although the grant period has ended, the resources created thanks to NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program will live on. The guest experience on the Aquarium floor will continue for the foreseeable future and the student programs—in-person as well as virtual—and teacher workshops will remain available within the Aquarium’s program catalog.

With a three-year $450,000 grant from NOAA, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and partners will implement Phase II of a climate and resilience education program, The Resilient Schools Consortium: Connecting Schools to Coastal Communities. Building on the previously funded Resilient Schools Consortium (RiSC) Program, (2016 - 2019), NWF will work with 200 students and 10 teachers from eight New York City Department of Education public schools. The students will adopt-a-shoreline in Coney Island, Brooklyn—a frontline community battered by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and threatened by sea level rise, coastal erosion, and inequitable exposures to flooding. Through field trips to local beaches, community engagement events, dune plantings, and public art installations, this project will connect students—who live or attend school in the Coney Island area—to residents and community partners. Together, they will increase their awareness of future climate impacts and develop strategies for building climate resilience and equitable adaptation to sea level rise. The Phase 1 RiSC curriculum for grades 6-12, designed by NYC STEM teachers, will be streamlined into a one-year product focused on coastal hazards, natural and built solutions that increase ecological resilience, and civic participation. Adaptable by schools in other coastal communities, the curriculum will continue to offer a strong foundation in climate science. Complete with user-friendly slide decks, handouts, and direct links to NOAA resources and digital tools, it will guide teachers and students through project-based activities during the school year. Key program partners, New York Sea Grant, and American Littoral Society (ALS), and advisors from the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay (SRIJB) will provide community science expertise and lead shoreline ecology field trips. An “Adopt-a-Shoreline Field Trip Guide” will help students monitor the shoreline. ALS will lead professional development workshops for teachers and dune-planting activities that will increase shoreline resilience. The Coney Island Beautification Project, a core community partner, will lead public engagement and outreach, and recruit residents with historical knowledge of local weather events for student interviews. Students will build sea level rise markers and install them in suitable public spaces. Culminating Open Houses will bring Coney Islanders together to view student work and provide a platform to discuss flood risks and solutions. Knology will evaluate the project’s impact.

ResilienceMT: Building Resilience in Montana’s Rural and Tribal Communities” education and engagement activities will enhance the environmental literacy of over 2,000 Montanans, including youth and adults, and support community climate resilience planning, implementation, and capacity building. This project addresses the need for adaptive capacity related to (1) wildfires and associated impacts on human health, state and local budgets, and Montana’s tourism and recreation economies; (2) drought and impacts on crops, agricultural economies, wildlife and game species, and culturally-significant plants; and (3) flooding due to extreme weather events and changes in amount and timing of spring snowmelt and associated impacts on water supplies, recreation, and fishing. Impacts associated with our changing climate are already occurring, and rural and tribal communities are particularly vulnerable and less prepared than larger communities. Project objectives include building action competence and capacity for resilience planning and implementation among youth and adults in partner communities. Specifically, the project will develop participants’ climate resilience-related knowledge and skills as well as their willingness, confidence, and capacity for action. Project leaders from the University of Montana, including spectrUM Discovery Area, and Montana State University will work in close collaboration with two tribal communities in Montana, the Blackfeet Nation, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community, and with two rural communities in the Bitterroot Valley, all of which are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Project activities aimed at achieving these objectives include (1) An interactive, data-based Mobile Climate Resilience Exhibit serving middle and high school students and families; (2) Community Climate Resilience Resource Guides; (3) Community Climate Resilience Forums; and (4) Follow-up interviews, report dissemination, and additional education and networking opportunities. The Mobile Exhibit will be collaboratively designed with partner teachers and communities and will utilize data and expertise from multiple sources including NOAA and the Montana Climate Office. The exhibit will employ digital ESRI Story Maps and other interactive physical elements to allow students and families to explore the science of wildfires, drought, and flooding; historical trends and projected climate changes, impacts, and interrelated human and ecological vulnerabilities at multiple geographic scales; and locally relevant climate resilience strategies. Elements of the Mobile Exhibit will be included in the Resource Guides, which will be available online and in print at the Community Forums. Collaboratively designed and led with tribal environmental offices and community partner organizations, the Community Climate Resilience Forums will include intergenerational dialogue; enhance understanding of community climate vulnerabilities and resilience planning efforts; and facilitate local action projects. Project leaders will obtain additional input from forum participants and community leaders; report to the community on the results; and facilitate various follow-up engagement, education, and networking activities among students and other community members to support achieving project objectives.

Arizonans face environmental hazards from extreme heat, drought, and flooding. Watershed Management Group and partner Arizona Project WET’s “Recharge the Rain” project addressed these threats by building environmental literacy among 4-12th grade teachers, students, and the public. The project centered on educator professional training and hands-on water harvesting skills. Participants moved through a continuum from awareness to knowledge gain, to conceptual understanding, and ultimately to action. Utilizing data and experts from NOAA assets, we strengthened the capacity of residents to be resilient to our local climate threats. This 4.5 year project 1) developed and immersed 14,452 students in STEAM curriculum incorporating water harvesting that increases understanding of earth systems, engineering design, and weather; 2) applied systems thinking to train 52 teachers and 191 community volunteers in water harvesting practices and citizen-science data collection; 3) involved 8,289 Tucson community members in water harvesting principles; 4) implemented 21 teacher/student-led water harvesting projects at schools; and 5) celebrated our community work with student artwork. RtR became a call for action and an inspiration for change and adaptation to extreme weather conditions in the urban environments of the Sonoran Desert putting Tucson at the core of understanding climate, adaptation, and community.