Funding Opportunity: Empowering K-8 Youth Through Place-Based Education Projects and Programs

Guardians of the Glades: Exploring South Florida’s Ecosystem Health from Swamp to Shore

Project Director (PD): Lisa Milenkovic
PD Organization: School Board of Broward County, Florida
Award Amount: $629,236
Overview:

This immersive educational program is designed to enhance the scientific and environmental literacy of elementary students in Broward County Public Schools while addressing critical issues facing South Florida’s natural environment, particularly the Everglades and Gulf Coast. For many students in high-need schools in Broward, access to natural spaces is limited. This project fosters a deeper understanding of local ecosystems and environmental challenges through place-based education. The curriculum emphasizes keystone species and species survival, and directly addresses scientific literacy goals, aligns lessons with formal education standards, and provides students with relevant, real-world learning experiences. Students engage in action planning and will showcase their learning at a school-based event during Everglades Day to promote environmental stewardship. Through collaborative efforts, innovative teaching methods, and experiential learning, the Guardians of the Glades project can inspire a new generation of environmental leaders and conservation stewards, ensuring a sustainable future for the South Florida community.

SEMILLAS: Sowing Environmental Multilingualism: Integrating Learning, Linguistics, and Action in Science

Project Director (PD): Ayca Fackler
PD Organization: University of Missouri
Award Amount: $427,478
Overview:

The University of Missouri, Mississippi State University, and Starkville Oktibbeha School District are partnering to address climate change impacts on water in Mississippi communities with growing multilingual student populations. In this district, 70% of students come from minority and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, many living in areas prone to extreme weather events and water contamination from natural and human-induced disasters, such as hurricanes. An interdisciplinary team of scholars will develop educational units, activities, and seminars to support fourth and fifth grade students in becoming agents of environmental change. Grounded in placemaking, futures thinking, and culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies, this project empowers students to examine how climate change affects water in their communities. These firsthand experiences will immerse students in their surroundings, strengthening their connection to the community and deepening their understanding of water issues. To ensure long-term impact, the project will establish a sustainable education program through ongoing teacher learning, fostering environmental stewardship among students and educators.

Grounded to Grow: Student-Led Green Infrastructure

Project Director (PD): Hayley White
PD Organization: Pontchartrain Conservancy
Award Amount: $227,300
Overview:

This three-year, hands-on, inquiry-driven program engages fifth grade students at a Title I school in researching, designing, and implementing green infrastructure solutions, such as a rain garden or permeable pavement, on their school campus. Centered on place-based learning, the program empowers students to explore environmental challenges in their communities while fostering long-term stewardship. Each school year, students begin by investigating stormwater management issues and green infrastructure solutions through classroom instruction, hands-on activities, and field experiences. Students then conduct research and collect environmental data, applying scientific methods to inform their campus project. They will engage with environmental professionals, present their findings to the school community, and refine their designs through peer and expert feedback. Students will implement and monitor a small-scale green infrastructure project using scientific tools to track its impact on stormwater retention and biodiversity. Additionally, teachers will receive training and resources to sustain green infrastructure education beyond the project’s duration.

Youth Envision II: Building Coastal Community Resiliency through Youth Empowerment

Project Director (PD): Diane Maygarden
PD Organization: University of New Orleans
Award Amount: $562,015
Overview:

The Youth Envision project connects New Orleans students in grades five through eight with their natural environment through lessons on water management and coastal resilience. Co-designed with community partners, the project blends classroom instruction, outdoor learning, and project-based activities. Students explore how human and natural systems are interconnected through site visits, model building, and data collection aligned with state education standards. With additional funding, the program will expand grade-specific activities: younger students focus on schoolyard-based inquiry and design, while older students tackle community and ecosystem-level challenges. Opportunities for students to implement projects will grow, along with more off-campus learning in nearby wetlands. By envisioning future social and ecological conditions, students build leadership skills and contribute to resilience planning in their communities. Youth Envision refines a successful education model that empowers young people to design solutions, strengthen environmental literacy, and take active roles in shaping a sustainable future for New Orleans.

Alabama Gulf Coast Resiliency Project: Sustainability, Full STEAMM Ahead

Project Director (PD): Jessica Sampley
PD Organization: Gulf Shores City Schools
Award Amount: $733,024
Overview:

This innovative K-8 initiative integrates place-based education, environmental stewardship, and STEAMM (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, and medicine) learning through hands-on experiences that build scientific literacy, problem-solving skills, and environmental responsibility while addressing real-world challenges in students’ coastal community. Each grade level will participate in place-based projects aligned with academic standards, ensuring continuity and long-term impact. Additionally, the Gulf Coast Sustainability Symposium will bring together students, educators, and industry leaders for workshops, competitions, and research presentations. By involving 2,500+ students, 52 teachers, and key community partners, this project will create a new generation of leaders equipped to solve environmental challenges. Through hands-on learning, industry partnerships, and career exploration, students will develop the skills and confidence needed to drive sustainable solutions and build a more resilient Gulf Coast.

Enhancing Water Quality and Human Health Knowledge on our Gulf Coast in South Texas

Project Director (PD): Ioana Pavel
PD Organization: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Award Amount: $670,269
Overview:

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi is partnering with local schools of science and technology to engage 600+ students in grades four to seven in scientific literacy and environmental stewardship. These children reside in coastal areas that are currently under extreme drought and frequently experience extreme weather events and boil-water advisories. The interdisciplinary team will develop hands-on educational activities centered on teaching students and their families to safely collect, test, and purify water for drinking from their own household, schools, community, and local beaches, such as the Padre Island National Seashore, where they will also assist in coastal prairie habitat cleanup and conservation. These place-based activities and a seminar series on coastal resources and pollutants will annually culminate in a visit to water/sewage treatment facilities, a report on 1,500+ water samples to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and the new “Water Fair on the Gulf Coast in South Texas” for children, families, and community representatives. This will demonstrate children’s ability to tackle one of the most pressing socio-environmental challenge of our community: the clean water shortage and its human health impacts.

Sustainable Solutions Challenge: Empowering K-8 Youth to Protect the Gulf Coast

Project Director (PD): Rachel Gisewhite
PD Organization: University of Southern Mississippi
Award Amount: $748,927
Overview:

The STEM Coastal Camp engages students in third to eighth grades in hands-on learning about climate adaptation, coastal resilience, and environmental sustainability. Through immersive field experiences, students explore challenges such as erosion, habitat loss, and biodiversity decline. Camp activities include marine animal conservation at Ocean Adventures Marine Park, sustainable fisheries exploration during a shrimping excursion, and wetland studies at the Pascagoula River Audubon Center. Students also investigate barrier island dynamics on Ship Island and analyze predator-prey systems, water quality, and coastal vulnerabilities. Design-thinking challenges allow students to prototype erosion barriers, model sustainable coastal communities, and interpret GIS maps. Culminating projects, such as public service announcements and a coastal resilience blueprint, empower students to engage in real-world solutions. By integrating field-based STEM education with hands-on engineering, ecosystem science, and community engagement, the STEM Coastal Camp equips students with the knowledge and skills to become future environmental stewards and decision-makers in the Gulf region.

Inquiry to Action: Emerging Civic Scientists Leading Waste and Water Solutions

Project Director (PD): Lisa Gianukos
PD Organization: Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation Inc.
Award Amount: $229,402
Overview:

The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF) is expanding its Civic Science: Inquiry to Action framework to students in grades three to five across the Houston-Galveston region. Building on work with students in grades six to 12, this initiative engages younger children in environmental inquiry through outdoor learning, field trips, and community-based projects to build environmental stewardship and foster a sense of belonging. Teachers receive professional development to integrate place-based sustainability topics into the classroom, such as examining school waste systems and watershed health. Students conduct cleanups, waste audits, and field studies at waterways and composting sites, learning how everyday practices connect to environmental outcomes. CELF will host student data exchanges with other partnering schools in the region, including other schools in Greater Houston as well as schools in Louisiana, to compare findings and establish a wider sense of community. Student projects will pursue actions such as reducing cafeteria food waste through composting and improved school gardens and improving school waste management systems to reduce waste getting into waterways.

Gulf Futures 3D

Project Director: Kiara Lovett
PD Organization: St. Petersburg Housing Authority
Award Amount: $740,860
Overview:

The Gulf Futures 3D project will establish three cutting-edge 3D technology labs within St. Petersburg Housing Authority communities, providing a transformative way to engage youth in scientific exploration. Equipped with 3D printers, virtual reality goggles, and 3D scanners, participants will use 3D technology to address real-world socio-environmental challenges in the Gulf of Mexico region, preparing them for 21st-century careers and empowering them to innovate sustainable solutions. Guided by community partners — including Tampa Bay Watch, JobCorps, SelfCAD, and St. Petersburg College — youth apply STEM skills to community-driven projects, pinpointing local environmental challenges and designing innovative 3D solutions. Projects take place in local parks, beaches, and waterways, strengthening connections to place while building technical expertise. Participants will analyze environmental data, design sustainable solutions, and visualize complex systems to tackle key Gulf Coast challenges. Gulf Futures 3D will cultivate critical thinking and innovation, empowering youth to contribute to a sustainable Gulf region through 3D solutions.

School to Shore: Creating Connections to the Gulf

Project Director (PD): Megan Pratt
PD Organization: Pensacola MESS Hall
Project Location: Pensacola, Florida
Award Amount: $145,200

Overview: The Pensacola MESS Hall will engage learners in grades three to five at 25 schools with inquiry-based, hands-on activities, by bringing the shore to the school. Each year, the theme will be slightly different. In year one, for example, “Explore the Shore” will highlight coastal life, and in year two, “Living in the Littoral Zone” will highlight sources of energy and its flow through systems. This experience will reach approximately 5,000 students each year.

In addition, deeper engagement with 10 high-need schools will focus on fifth grade students who will participate in classroom activities on water and its properties; a role-playing experience that considers the points of view of community stakeholders in a simulated town faced with extreme precipitation challenges; and an exercise to evaluate different interventions that they could utilize to improve the environmental impact of their school. This program will reach approximately 600 students each year.

The activities will be fully aligned with state science standards; focus on the “nature of science” including modeling, graphing, and other skills; and incorporate math and engineering concepts along with cross-curricular connections.

Map It Clean! 2.0

Project Director (PD): Fran Harvey
PD Organization: Louisiana Remote Sensing and GIS Institute — doing business as Global Geospatial Institute (GGI)
Project Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Award Amount: $225,462

Overview: As the world becomes more technologically connected, students and educators need skills to analyze information from a spatial perspective and resources to effect positive environmental change.?The Map It Clean! 2.0 program uses Esri’s ArcGIS Online — the leading geographic information system (GIS) technology — to engage grades three to eight in mapping the litter landscape of their community. Students collect, store, manipulate, analyze, and display geographical data of litter, helping them visualize the effects in their locale.

Over 24 months, GGI will implement the program at the Eva Legard Learning Center for Coastal and Environmental Studies, Park Forest Creative Sciences & Arts Magnet Elementary School, and Magnolia Woods Elementary School, reaching 380+ students and 24 educators. The partner schools serve student populations that are more than 95% economically disadvantaged and primarily from minority backgrounds. Educators will participate in comprehensive professional development workshops, which equip them to teach how to become active citizen scientists and effective environmental stewards.?

Glass Roots: Cultivating Salt Marshes of Tomorrow

Project Director (PD): Alison Rellinger
PD Organization: Mississippi State University
Project Location: Biloxi, Mississippi
Award Amount: $371,918

Overview: Glass Roots: Cultivating Salt Marshes of Tomorrow is a program for fifth to eighth graders in coastal Mississippi that leverages several successful high school programs to design an experience tailored for younger students to learn about marsh and dune restoration and the role of these important ecosystems in climate resilience and watershed management. Glass Roots students and educators will grow plants for restoration in sand made from recycled glass and perform experiments to optimize growth. This unique, sustainable solution to marsh and dune restoration will give students a hands-on experience solving some of our most pressing coastal issues.

Wide Horizons: Place-Based Education and the Future of the Gulf

Project Director (PD): Julian Rankin
PD Organization: Walter Anderson Museum of Art
Project Location: Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Award Amount: $467,427

Overview: The Walter Anderson Museum of Art will scale the Wide Horizons place-based initiative for students in grades seven and eight that blends science, history, geography, and self-expression to target environmental challenges in the Gulf of Mexico. This program was inaugurated with GRP funding in 2022.

In partnership with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Marine Education Center and Center for STEM Education and the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, the museum will lead two years of activities for students and teachers, including: mobile science and storytelling experiences in classrooms; immersive daylong field days to surrounding environments accompanied by journaling, art creation, and data-gathering; and climate action exhibitions co-created between students, artists, and curators that communicate data-driven environmental solutions through multimedia installations.

Growing Galveston: School-Based Outdoor Education for a More Resilient Future

Project Director (PD): Kristi Hibler-Luton
PD Organization: EcoRise Youth Innovations
Project Location: Austin, Texas
Award Amount: $421,880

Project Summary: Growing Galveston: School-Based Outdoor Education for a More Resilient Future will provide a comprehensive outdoor learning and environmental literacy program for K-8 students in the Galveston Independent School District. In partnership with Galveston’s Own Farmers Market, this school garden program will cultivate scientific and environmental literacy and empower students to solve local environmental challenges through a collaborative, multi-pronged approach. EcoRise aims to build on this collaborative, place-based model for student-centered garden education, nurturing a new generation of change makers.

The program’s pedagogical approach is grounded in hands-on, place-based education, transforming school gardens into outdoor classrooms. Students will increase their scientific and environmental literacy as they learn and apply concepts across multiple content areas in a school garden setting, including collecting and analyzing data to inform the design of student-driven environmental solutions. In addition, through engaging, garden-based professional development, teachers learn how to effectively leverage outdoor spaces to teach academic content and cultivate environmental literacy, and they can immediately apply what they learn through customized activities and EcoRise’s eco-audit micro-grant process.

Guardians of the Gulf: Promoting Youth Engagement for Marine Animal Conservation in Florida’s Nature Coast

Project Director (PD): Julie Brown
PD Organization: University of Florida
Project Location: Gainesville, Florida
Award Amount: $427,065

Overview: Guardians of the Gulf engages sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from Levy County, Florida, in place-based learning on marine animal conservation. Each year, the students capture community photographs, conduct a marine mammal survey at Manatee Springs State Park, and analyze historical coastal changes and local strandings data, guided by partner marine scientists. At a research symposium hosted by the University of Florida, students present their findings to the scientific community, collaborating with content experts to deepen their understanding of marine conservation, further empowering them as guardians of their place and Florida’s Nature Coast.

Students will explore issues like marine animal strandings, resource availability, and ecosystem health, devising conservation solutions showcased in a community gallery at their schools, receiving feedback from professionals and community members, with each classroom implementing its most viable conservation idea. High-quality professional development ensures science teachers will successfully implement and sustain these initiatives. By aligning with state and national science education standards and leveraging local ecological knowledge, the Guardians of the Gulf curriculum fosters deep connection with the environment, enhances environmental literacy, and empowers youth as stewards of local marine ecosystems. Through collaborative, real-world experiences steeped in science and engineering practices, youth gain essential knowledge and skills, preparing them to address local socio-environmental issues and contribute to marine conservation efforts effectively.

Advancing Water Literacy Among K-8 Children in Southeast Louisiana Through the “Living with Water” Program

Project Director (PD): Shannon Blady
PD Organization: Louisiana Children's Museum
Project Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Award Amount: $472,000

Overview: The Louisiana Children’s Museum (LCM) will implement “Living with Water,” its place-based environmental education program designed to supplement traditional K-8 classroom learning by engaging children in hands-on activities that build water and environmental literacy skills as an important first step to becoming problem-solvers for future environmental needs.

Living with Water learning will take place in in Orleans and Jefferson Parish K-5 schools and at the museum’s state-of-the-art sustainable facility and expansive indoor/outdoor campus in New Orleans City Park. Currently, the Living with Water classroom curriculum is designed for third grade students; with GRP funding, LCM will adapt the curriculum for children through fifth grade and expand its implementation. Additionally, LCM will tailor the curriculum for students in grades six to eight and implement it through a new two-week summer camp. Lastly, LCM will expand Living with Water to include museum-based activities that engage daytime and after-hours visitors in grades K-8, including Living with Water nights for older children and workshops and demonstrations led by local subject-matter experts. Through Living with Water, LCM will continue to explore the intersection of the Reggio Emilia Approach to Childhood Education, design thinking, Next Generation Science Standards, and Louisiana’s academic standards.

Greauxing STEM-Stewards

Project Director (PD): John Underwood
PD Organization: Louisiana Department of Education
Project Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Award Amount: $405,000

Overview: The Greauxing STEM-Stewards program is designed to build a community of practice for Louisiana aquaponic STEM educators, increase student awareness of local STEM careers, improve communities’ knowledge of aquaponics, and help students better connect with the community they live in. The two-year project endeavors to build the first Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) middle school learning environment in Louisiana. CEAs help students develop a sound knowledge of plant physiology, nutrient cycles, ichthyology, marine ecosystems, and the roles of humans in the biosphere.

Greauxing STEM-Stewards seeks to connect students with aquaculture and conservation fields through a project-based curriculum, guest speakers from the community, daily interactions with organisms, and peer-to-peer mentoring/learning. Middle school students will learn how to operate and maintain the CEA equipment, raise fish, cultivate edible plants, maintain a balanced ecosystem via water quality and nutrient monitoring, and connect their efforts to local business and career opportunities. These middle school students will engage with partner elementary school students to explain and educate their peers on the CEA system. The teachers in the aquaponics community of practice will design lessons for students that include two place-based learning opportunities.

Brilliant Resilience Youth Empowerment Program: Improving Environmental Literacy Through Culturally Relevant Place-Based Learning

Project Director (PD): Bruce Strouble
PD Organization: Citizens for a Sustainable Future Inc.
Project Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Award Amount: $491,495

Overview: Citizens for a Sustainable Future is a community-based organization dedicated to advancing resilience by providing transformative learning experiences that promote environmental stewardship, civic engagement, and personal growth. Over the past two years, it has successfully engaged hundreds of children in dynamic, place-based education that has measurably increased their environmental literacy and critical thinking skills. Citizens for a Sustainable Future will further these efforts through the expansion of the Brilliant Resilience Program.

Set to commence in September 2024, the Brilliant Resilience Program is designed to impact around 500 youths from grades three to eight over two years. The initiative includes two six-week summer camp sessions and six six-week “Saturday School” cohorts, supplemented by four youth-focused community events hosted in underserved neighborhoods of Tallahassee and on the campus of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. This program utilizes an innovative place-based curriculum that combines field trips to the Gulf of Mexico’s unique ecosystems with culturally rich and structured activities, aligning with state-wide educational standards. This approach will not only deepen students' connection to their environment but also equip them with the necessary tools to become proactive leaders in environmental justice and community resilience, and students will assume the role of informed and innovative environmental stewards.

Understanding Place: Students and Teachers Researching and Engaging in Authentic Meaning (UP:STREAM)

Project Director (PD): Lillian Madden
PD Organization: Louisiana Tech University
Project Location: Ruston, Louisiana
Award Amount: $597,134

Overview: UP:STREAM will develop knowledgeable stewards of the Mississippi River watershed and foster understanding of its relationship to the Gulf of Mexico. UP:STREAM will rely on three strategies connected to place-based education and citizen science: professional development for teachers; school-community partnerships; and afterschool experiences. At the heart of the project’s approach is place-based educational activities that foster the development of scientific and environmental skills, competencies, and capabilities critical to solving complex issues in the Gulf region and the areas that feed into the Gulf.

UP:STREAM will consist of a cohort of 25 fifth grade educators from underserved and underrepresented North Louisiana schools and communities. The program will provide these teachers with professional development opportunities, including eight hours of online place-based education awareness in the spring and four days of face-to-face training in the summer, and presentation methods will include inquiry-based and hands-on approaches to meet the needs of the educators. The UP:STREAM team will guide the educator, students, and community as they develop an environmental plan for their unique area. Two environmental camps for up to 20 elementary students per camp (80 total) will be offered during fall and spring each year.

Threading Student-Led Decision-Making and Action Into STEAM-Powered Blue Carbon Place-Based Experiences

Project Director (PD): Karla Klay
PD Organization: Artist Boat Inc.
Project Location: Galveston, Texas
Award Amount: $746,174

Overview: Students will receive a yearlong hands-on, place-based program (STEAM-Powered Blue Carbon – Inquiry Workshops, Eco-Art and Blue Carbon Workshops, Eco-Art Kayak Adventures, Action Planning, and Action Projects) facilitated by their teachers and Eco-Art educators (marine biologists and artists) who are trained to foster student-led and inquiry based learning in place that results in students who self-determine their products to share environmental issues and solutions. Additionally, Artist Boat will provide professional development to 50 teachers and key staff who will facilitate the transformative program through focus on student-led decision-making, questions for investigations, and design thinking to determine actions. The participants are from the five counties surrounding Galveston Bay (Galveston, Chambers, Brazoria, Harris, and Fort Bend Counties), which cover a large and diverse geographic (rural/inner city), cultural (ethnicity/religions), and socioeconomic audience of students who are underserved and underrepresented.

OCEAN Kids: Ocean Citizen-Science Educational Audio-Course on Nurdles for Kids

Project Director (PD): Sara Robberson Lentz
PD Organization: Associated Universities Inc.
Project Location: Washington, D.C.
Award Amount: $335,563

Overview: OCEAN Kids brings together the expertise of Associated Universities Inc., the Tumble science podcast for kids, and the citizen science project Nurdle Patrol. OCEAN Kids will make an interactive audio course that educates students in grades three to five about microplastics in their communities and around the world. Nurdles are pellets about the size of a lentil used to make almost all plastic products and are the second largest source of microplastic pollution globally. Each year an estimated 445,970 tonnes of nurdles wash up on beaches and riverbanks and can also be found near storm drains and freight train lines. Microplastics are a critical issue students can explore where they live, coastal or not.

OCEAN Kids will be a standards-aligned audio course designed to increase students’ science literacy and interaction with their communities. This learner-centered audio course will be freely available online. Taking place over several classroom days, the audio course will be a STEM instructional supplement for third to fifth grade classrooms, home school environments, or informal learning for families or clubs. Students will listen to immersive storytelling and participate in guided activities that will flow into place-based extension materials. It launches young listeners on a mission to solve problems through tinkering, investigating, argumentation, and communication of core concepts. Students will be empowered to explore their own environments and come up with collaborative solutions to plastic pollution problems facing their communities.

Experiential Place-Based Environmental Literacy in the Mississippi Delta

Project Director (PD): Amanda Delperdang
PD Organization: Mississippi Delta Nature and Learning Center
Project Location: Leland, Mississippi
Award Amount: $236,772.40

Overview: Children ages 5-15 in the Mississippi Delta will be provided with hands-on educational experiences that teach them about environmental stewardship in their community. The purpose of the program is to connect children and youth to nature rather than teaching them abstract concepts in a standard classroom setting. With the increased use of technology in classrooms, students in the Mississippi Delta spend less time engaging with the natural world, sometimes even regularly skipping recess due to testing concerns and cutting science instruction short to focus on tested subjects. This program will provide children with experiential science learning opportunities through field trips, summer camps, and weekly programming. The program will take place at the Mississippi Delta Nature and Learning Center, a 30-acre piece of land with an outdoor children’s garden, trails, and wildflower meadows. Activities in the program are hands-on and student-led designed around the Mississippi College and Career Readiness Standards.

OCEANS (Oceanography, Conservation, Ecology, Arts, Nature, and Stewardship): Building Resilience Through Place-Based Learning

Project Director (PD): Katie Doyle
PD Organization: Flour Bluff Independent School District
Project Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
Award Amount: $472,679

Overview: OCEANS (Oceanography, Conservation, Ecology, Arts, Nature, and Stewardship): Building Resilience Through Place-Based Learning will be implemented in K-8 grades of Flour Bluff Independent School District, which is comprised primarily of minority students from economically disadvantaged homes who are at high risk of dropping out of the educational system. OCEANS will educate, inspire, and empower students, teachers, and community stakeholders to protect their environment. This will be achieved by 1) enriching learning with place-based citizen science/stewardship projects that build capacity with cross-generational knowledge from community partners; 2) integrating place-based OCEANS-themed curriculum in K-8 classrooms; 3) empowering older students to be environmental ambassadors to younger students through place-based, hands-on activities; and 4) drafting an Environmental Stewardship and Literacy Plan for the community that supports resiliency. OCEANS will complement formal state-wide education learning objectives and increase STEM literacy specific to our underrepresented community by developing a sense of community ownership and awareness of unique coastal resources.

Rural Water Education Partnership for Place-Based STEM Learning in Out-of-School Programs

Project Director (PD): Christopher Spencer
PD Organization: Black Belt Community Foundation
Project Location: Selma, Alabama
Award Amount: $287,832

Overview: The Rural Water Education Partnership is composed of the Black Belt Community Foundation, University of Alabama, and Hale County School System with the shared goal to promote STEM literacy and workforce readiness for students in grades 6-8 through hands-on, engaging STEM learning, student-initiated research projects, and advocacy opportunities based on cutting-edge water and wastewater research already occurring in students’ communities. It will also promote STEM skills and career awareness for the participant teachers and provide opportunities for STEM researchers to build their skills and capacity for educational outreach and public communication of science.

Suwannee Watershed: Assessment and Monitoring of Place to Gain Understanding of Local Flow (SWAMP to GULF)

Project Director (PD): Lacey Huffling
PD Organization: Georgia Southern University
Project Location: Statesboro, Georgia (project work in north central Florida)
Award Amount: $465,335

Overview: The purpose of SWAMP to GULF is to develop a Florida place-based professional development opportunity for middle school science teachers that builds on the Okefenokee Swamp place-based professional development opportunity, Our2Swamp. Florida teachers will be trained to monitor local watershed conditions and examine the health and resilience of local ecosystems along the Gulf through research service learning. Teachers will integrate place-based citizen science projects, such as Adopt-a-Stream, and create inquiry and design thinking lessons to increase students’ understanding of human and climate impacts on local watersheds on the Gulf of Mexico.

A Watershed Event (AWE): Empowering K-8 Youth through Place-Based Education

Project Director (PD): Donna Ellen Granger
PD Organization: Florida State University
Project Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Award Amount: $117,443

Overview: The project will be centered around the Apalachee Bay in the Gulf of Mexico and its watershed. Field investigations for students and their teachers will be held at the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory at Turkey Point in Franklin County. Thus, the target audience is students from a five-county region that borders this watershed, and by extension their teachers and parents. The goal of the project is to build understanding of environmental issues in and promote stewardship of the Gulf and its watershed among students through meaningful science educational experiences. To maximize students’ formal education experience, teachers must become facilitators of learning in which students themselves develop the science concepts with teachers as guides scaffolding the learning by carefully sequencing learning experiences and investigations, asking questions to engage students in sense making, and building on student ideas. To aid in the shift to this type of instruction, professional development for teachers will also be provided.

Watersheds, Wetlands, and Urban Ecology: New Orleans East Youth Envision the Future for Their Community

Project Director (PD): Diane Maygarden
PD Organization: University of New Orleans
Project Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Award Amount: $242,596

Overview: This interdisciplinary project will engage approximately 800 secondary school students in grades 5 through 7, their teachers, and community members in East New Orleans in place-based education focused on exploring their connections to the wetlands and watershed surrounding their neighborhood and school and the role these surrounding wetlands play in ecological and community health. Project collaborators will engage students in inquiry and project-based multidisciplinary educational programming in their school, community, and at Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge and other green spaces. Classroom and outdoor science inquiry learning activities geared to Louisiana state curriculum standards will enable program participants to gain skills and knowledge in the application of hands-on science. Students and teachers will explore the interconnectivity between their community and the surrounding environment through visits to a variety of local sites to learn how human communities are intricately linked to natural communities and ecosystems.

Wetland Days: Watershed-Based Enrichment Opportunities for Youth

Project Director (PD): Dani DiIullo
PD Organization: Louisiana Sea Grant (hosted at Louisiana State University)
Project Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Award Amount: $88,800

Overview: Wetland Days are single-day, place-based field experiences that are customized to both the local habitat of the participating public schools and the needs of the K-8 teachers and administrators from the school system. Through immersive place-based activities and investigations, Louisiana Sea Grant seeks to build environmental literacy using applied learning that supports classroom instruction. Wetland Days are customizable opportunities that allow schools to build a placed-based field investigation (from a menu of choices) that will be age-appropriate, standards-aligned, and contain sound science. Sea Grant will take on the financial, instructional, and logistical challenges that are inherent to off-campus learning. This will allow the teachers to focus on classroom instruction, with the knowledge that Wetland Days will serve as a tool to apply that information in a local setting. This project seeks to enhance the environmental literacy of over 1,000 Louisiana public school students through the co-creation of place-based educational opportunities.

Youth Wetlands Education Project

Project Director (PD): Rashida Ferdinand
PD Organization: Sankofa Community Development Corp.
Project Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Award Amount: $150,000

Orientation: The Sankofa Community Development Corp. Youth Wetlands Education Project, located in the vulnerable Lower Ninth Ward community of New Orleans, creates a framework for ecology education, nature-to-classroom connections, and equitable access to nature that will ignite K-8 students’ knowledge of our environmental challenges in Southern Louisiana, and will provide educators with key professional development opportunities. Utilizing Sankofa’s Wetland Park and Nature Trail — our 40-acre green infrastructure and wetland restoration initiative — the project will: 1) develop and expand a variety of environmental education field studies aligned with the state content school standards; 2) offer structured experiences that integrate ecology, natural history, health and wellness, art, and local history, giving students important time not only to explore nature but also to build on key concepts as they advance through grades; 3) host educators from New Orleans Public Schools and provide them with environmental lesson plans and professional development opportunities; and 4) engage ecologists, naturalists, and scientists from Louisiana and around the country who utilize the Wetland Park as space for research and coastal restoration studies.

Watershed Investigations: Place-Based Deep Dives for Title I Schools

Project Director (PD): Kimberly Cooke
PD Organization: Pontchartrain Conservancy
Project Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Award Amount: $90,600

Overview: Watershed Investigations is a deep dive program for educators and students in grades 6-8th grade at Title I schools in the Pontchartrain Basin that seeks to “advance science and understanding.” It is place-based, inquiry-driven, and hands-on. In line with the GRP’s guidance, the community is the classroom. With the goal to “build partnerships and engage networks,” four teachers and 400+ students at four Title I schools will be engaged over the two year period. Each semester, a new cohort, including the teacher and their students, will carry out a watershed investigation in their communities. PC staff provide an orientation at the beginning of the semester. In it, students learn what a watershed is and identify possible real-world issues to investigate through fieldwork in their communities. Once a month for a semester, students conduct relevant tests at their chosen field site. These field visits provide the perfect opportunity for students to be exposed to useful skills, such as data collection, collaborating, utilizing science equipment, and analyzing and interpreting data as they seek to answer their driving questions. PC staff facilitate each field visit and provide guidance in-between visits on how to integrate the investigations into the teachers’ scope and sequences. At the end of the semester, students present the data they collected, their analysis of the results, and their possible solutions in the format of their choice to the audience of their choice within their own communities which can “bridge knowledge to action.”

Wide Horizons: Place-Based Education and the Future of the Gulf

Wide Horizons: Place-Based Education and the Future of the Gulf
Project Director (PD): Julian Rankin
PD Organization: Walter Anderson Museum of Art
Project Location: Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Award Amount: $242,000

Overview: The Walter Anderson Museum of Art (the Museum) proposes Wide Horizons, an interdisciplinary place-based educational initiative for regional middle school students (Grades 6-8) blending science, history, geography, and self-expression to target contemporary and future environmental challenges in the Gulf of Mexico. In partnership with the Pascagoula River Audubon Center (PRAC) and The University of Southern Mississippi’s Marine Education Center (MEC), the Museum will lead two years of activities for participating students from across the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Activities include: daylong immersive field days to partnering sites and surrounding environments, accompanied by student journaling, art making, data-gathering, and peer-to-peer dialogue and problem-solving. Following these immersive field days, the Museum will facilitate community-engaged climate action projects co-created between participating students and visiting artists that communicate data-driven and creative solutions to environmental issues of regional and local importance. Wide Horizons is inspired by the artworks, writings, and philosophies of Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965), the Gulf’s cultural patron saint and a believer in the paradigm-shifting potentials of experiential education and exploration. Anderson’s legacy provides a blueprint for connecting ecological and societal cause-and-effect with the agency of the individual to direct civic and environmental action. His expansive understanding of the Gulf of Mexico as a locus for indigenous ways of knowing and identity, colonial and technological contestation, citizen-science, and narrative change empower communities to address complex social and environmental factors through observation and meaning-making, echoing John Dewey’s assertion that, “To be intelligent we must ‘stop, look, and listen’” when designing for community impact.

Puddles & Floods: Learning to “Read” Flood-Prone Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi

Puddles & Floods: Learning to “Read” Flood-Prone Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi
Project Director (PD): Claire Anderson
PD Organization: Ripple Effect Water Literacy Project
Project Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Award Amount: $223,810

Overview: This project proposes a two-part student learning journey, in which upper elementary and middle school students build their understanding of scientific and social dimensions of flooding through investigations centered on two sites—their schoolyards and one off campus flood control location in Southeast Louisiana. Student learning experiences traverse scientific, social, and political realms of flood control as they use field-based protocols and engage storytelling to build a science-based understanding of causes of flooding, and also connect the phenomenon of increasing frequency of flood events to their own experiences and futures. Across ten 1-hour lessons, students from East Baton Rouge and Orleans parishes will view a short film based off of the documentary Station 15, which is about a young Black woman in New Orleans who tries to figure out why her city floods so often. Students then use research-based protocols to track how water moves through environmental and human systems within their schoolyard, then apply these same investigations to track the movement of water in regionally significant sites of flood control. In a culminating project, students share their own learning journey through creative writing, drawing, photographic essays, or other creative forms of expression to draw connections between their personal experiences with flooding, their developing socioecological knowledge, and field locations.

Sea Turtle Ambassadors for the Gulf: Increasing Scientific Literacy Through Field Experiences for Teachers/Students

Sea Turtle Ambassadors for the Gulf: Increasing Scientific Literacy Through Field Experiences for Teachers/Students
Project Director (PD): Rebecca Mott
PD Organization: Inwater Research Group
Project Location: Jensen Beach, Florida
Award Amount: $144,500

Overview: The Sea Turtle Ambassadors for the Gulf (STAG) program will expand our current programming to underserved 3rd-8th grade students and teachers from Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco County School Districts by providing immersive experiences that empower them to become sea turtle ambassadors within their communities. The program will give students and teachers a hands-on, inquiry-based learning opportunity using field experiences, training workshops, and our successful "Traveling Trunk" programs. These trunk programs are built upon actual sea turtle research and align with state standards to advance conservation efforts and enhance environmental literacy. Teachers will gain hands-on training on how to run these free programs with their students, disseminating what they’ve learned during the field experience and bringing the Gulf into the classroom. Each trunk can reach over 1,000 students per year. During the field experience, teachers and students will join our research vessel in the coastal waters of the Gulf as we capture, collect data from, and discuss threatened/endangered sea turtles. Participants will learn about sea turtle biology from live specimens, ecology will be taught while in the ecosystem, and conservation issues highlighted firsthand. After the field experience, teachers and Inwater Research Group staff will lead a workshop with students to develop school-wide, student-driven projects that support the conservation messages they’ve received. By collaborating with school districts, students, and teachers, we will provide opportunities to inspire the ongoing engagement of classroom students in finding creative, innovative solutions to the pressing issues facing Florida's imperiled sea turtles.

Interdisciplinary Civic Science with Pre- and In-service Teachers to Connect Students to Place

Interdisciplinary Civic Science with Pre- and In-service Teachers to Connect Students to Place
Project Director (PD): Lisa Gianukos
PD Organization: Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation
Project Location: Houston, Texas
Award Amount: $103,555

Overview: The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF) and the UHCLTeach program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) jointly propose a Place-Based Education program that combines CELF’s expertise in teacher professional learning and student engagement embedding environmental literacy as a cross-curricular learning lens, with UHCL’s expertise in equipping pre-service math and science teachers with pedagogical tools to launch impactful teaching careers. Over two years, the proposed program will incorporate CELF’s inquiry- and project-based approach into UHCLTeach’s pre-service teacher training during the courses Inquiry Approaches to Teaching Mathematics and Science STEP 1 and STEP 2. CELF’s educator team will support four UHCLTeach cohorts reaching up to 100 pre-service educators with student project implementation support during their classroom placements, with additional support for up to 20 full-time teachers working in their placement schools. These placement schools will be located in Houston Independent School District, Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District, and Pasadena Independent School District. These Gulf Coast districts serve students significantly impacted by environmental justice issues such as air pollution. CELF will apply its Civic Science: Inquiry to Action framework to guide teachers in implementing interdisciplinary, community-based student action projects that build students’ skills in systems thinking, data literacy, problem-solving, and place-based storytelling. At the end of Year 2, select educators will participate in a dedicated CELF Summer Institute - a multiday professional learning workshop - at UHCL to reflect on lessons learned while implementing environmental literacy projects in their classrooms, and develop project plans for the following academic year.

Biodiversity, Relationships, and Aquatic Chemistry Knowledge in Saline Habitats (BRACKISH)

Biodiversity, Relationships, and Aquatic Chemistry Knowledge in Saline Habitats (BRACKISH)
Project Director (PD): Ayesha Gray
PD Organization: Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve
Project Location: Moss Point, Mississippi
Award Amount: $285,998

Overview: This project, Biodiversity, Relationships, and Aquatic Chemistry Knowledge in Saline Habitats (BRACKISH), will use place-based learning approaches, specifically hands-on and inquirybased learning, to foster environmental literacy in eighth grade students in Pascagoula and Moss Point. Place-based education helps students learn to care for their environment by understanding where they live and taking action in their own communities. The Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GNDNERR) has a long-lasting relationship with schools within the community and is well equipped to implement environmental education programs. The three-day program structure will immerse 8th grade students in reserve science and their local estuarine environment, ultimately increasing environmental literacy, problem-solving skills, and place-attachment. Day one will entail NERR staff presenting to students at their school as an orientation to the estuary, focusing on concepts and ecological principles. A second day, follow up field experience at Grand Bay NERR will allow students to investigate the environment by collecting water quality data, species sampling, and exploring estuarine habitats. They will use tablet applications to analyze their data and discuss their findings with their classmates. On the third day, concepts learned during the program will be reinforced by introducing students to mock case studies related to water quality issues within their community. Students will be assigned roles, challenged to develop potential solutions, and justify their reasoning with their peers. Target schools contain a large percentage of underserved students, funds will be allocated toward alleviating field trip costs like substitute teachers, transportation, and lunches during field experiences.

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Funding Opportunity: Empowering K-8 Youth Through Place-Based Education Projects and Programs

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Funding Opportunity: Empowering K-8 Youth Through Place-Based Education Projects and Programs

Awarded 2025

Resources

Awarded Projects

Awarded 2024

Resources

Awarded Projects

Awarded 2023

Resources

Awarded Projects

Awarded 2022

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Awarded Projects