Promoting Professional Development and Best Practice in EE
NOAA-21st Century Community Learning Centers Watershed STEM Education Partnership Grants
Diving into eeBLUE: NAAEE Partners with NOAA to Offer Watershed STEM Education Grants
"This opportunity to help youth learn about and discover ways to protect their watershed couldn’t come at a better time. Aside from the many health benefits of connecting to nature, both physical and mental, empowering youth to find their voice and learn ways they can help protect the watershed will have ongoing positive impacts on these local communities." —Kelly Steffan, from the Environmental Science Center in Washington
Anticipated Program Outcomes
- Students will learn about STEM while also building leadership and advocacy skills by participating in exciting hands-on learning activities and connecting to nature. All Watershed STEM Grantees and partners are adapting to meet the needs of the students according to current health and safety guidelines. Please note that proposals were submitted prior to COVID-19.
- Watershed STEM grantees are offering virtual professional development opportunities and planning with partners to ensure that their projects are tailored to evolving partner and community needs.
- Staff will also gain from the partnership, strengthening both environmental literacy and teaching skills. Watershed STEM grantees and 21st CCLC partners will deliver authentic STEM experiences that use components of the NOAA Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) model along with other NOAA assets and expertise.
"In response to the social distancing mandate and in efforts to both protect our students and the places we would like to take them to engage in meaningful watershed educational experiences, the Pacific American Foundation’s Kilo Kai program is planning on using GoPro Max 360 cameras to combine still and video imagery to create an immersive experience where students can walk through an entire watershed from the ridges to the reefs." —Derek Esibill, from the Pacific American Foundation in Hawaii
Watershed Chronicles
- November 2020: "Mass Audubon: Place-Based STEM Meets You Where You Are"
by Cori Brauer, Education Coordinator at Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary - December 2020: "Kilo Kai, to Observe the Ocean—Connecting Land Use and Its Impacts on the Nearshore Ecosystem" by Derek Esibill, from the Pacific American Foundation in Hawaii
- January 2021: "Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies: Kenai Watersheds" by Katie Gavenus, Program Director for the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies
- February 2021: "Training Teachers to Bring the Outside In" by Meredeth Dash, VA Environmental Education Specialist for the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
"We are so excited about this partnership! We can’t wait to hear the first gasps and exclamations of 'ewww!' and 'whoa!' as students wade into cold rivers and mud marshes, look at macroinvertebrates and plankton up close or hold a sea star for the first time." —Katie Gavenus, Program Director at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies
Congratulations to the Watershed STEM Grantees!
Please visit the You for Youth site for additional information on this partnership and to view an interactive map to learn more about each of the grantees.
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For additional information on this partnership, please visit the You for Youth site.
- For questions, please contact:
- T’Noya Thompson, NAAEE: tnoya@naaee.org
- Bronwen Rice, NOAA Office of Education: bronwen.rice@noaa.gov, 202-482-6797
- Y4Y NOAA support team: Y4YNOAA@seiservices.com