Strengthening the Public's and/or K-12 Students' Environmental Literacy for Community Resilience to Extreme Weather Events and Other Environmental Hazards | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

This NOAA (U.S. Department of Commerce) discretionary grant opportunity, offered as a cooperative agreement, is designed to strengthen environmental literacy among the general public and/or K-12 students so they can make better-informed decisions that improve community resilience to extreme weather and other environmental hazards. The program is rooted in the idea that many communities across the United States are already dealing with, and will continue to face, disruptions from hazards such as hurricanes, tornadoes, severe storms, flooding, heavy precipitation, persistent drought, heat waves, rising temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise. By improving how people understand these risks and the systems behind them, the opportunity aims to help communities prevent damage where possible, withstand impacts when events occur, and recover more effectively afterward.

Funded projects are expected to build environmental literacy in a practical, place-based way. NOAA emphasizes geographic awareness and a working understanding of Earth systems, especially how a community's location shapes its specific vulnerabilities and risks. Competitive proposals should help participants learn to reason about how natural systems and human systems interact, how scientific knowledge is developed (including uncertainty), and how decisions can have connected effects across time and space. The intent is not just to deliver information, but to strengthen the public's ability to evaluate tradeoffs, anticipate consequences, and make systematic, evidence-based choices related to resilience.

A major requirement is that projects be grounded in established scientific evidence about current and future hazards and stresses and that they consider socio-economic and ecological factors. Proposals are also expected to connect directly to real planning and implementation efforts already underway in communities. In particular, projects should leverage and incorporate relevant state and local hazard mitigation plans and/or adaptation plans and collaborate with institutions involved in developing or carrying out those plans. Projects can focus on a single hazard (for example, flooding in a river basin or storm surge in a coastal area) or address multiple hazards affecting one or more communities, as long as the work stays tied to real-world resilience needs.

NOAA signals openness to a wide range of education and engagement approaches, but it draws a clear line that projects must actively engage participants in learning and addressing real issues, rather than relying on passive outreach alone. Another core requirement is the use of NOAA scientific resources. Projects must utilize NOAA data, data access tools, data visualizations, and/or other NOAA physical and intellectual assets relevant to resilience, hazards, weather, climate, oceans, coasts, or the Great Lakes. To make that feasible, applicants are strongly encouraged to partner with NOAA offices, programs, or NOAA staff and affiliates. NOAA also points applicants to its education portal (education.noaa.gov) and a resilience assets page that lists datasets, potential partners, and related federal and non-federal resources.

Projects must be implemented within the United States and its territories and can operate at local to regional scales. Topics must align with NOAA's mission areas, including ocean, coastal, Great Lakes, weather, and climate sciences and stewardship, and they should support at least one of NOAA's Next Generation Strategic Plan goals: Healthy Oceans, Weather-Ready Nation, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, and Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies. In practice, that means proposals should connect learning outcomes to tangible resilience capacities such as improved risk understanding, better preparedness behaviors, stronger community planning support, or enhanced decision-making using credible data.

Eligibility is limited to U.S.-based institutions of higher education, nonprofits (including informal education organizations like museums, zoos, and aquariums), K-12 public and independent schools and school systems, and state, local, and federally recognized tribal governments. For-profit entities, foreign institutions, and individuals are not eligible. The funding range for a project is a total federal request between $250,000 and $500,000 over the entire project period, with projects lasting between 2 and 5 years. The opportunity anticipated making up to about 8 awards, with an award ceiling of $500,000. The original and current closing date listed was February 8, 2016, with expected awards by September 30, 2016 and a project start date no earlier than October 1, 2016 (indicating this specific posting was for the FY 2016 cycle).

Key administrative details from the listing include the funding opportunity number NOAA SEC OED 2016 2004737, CFDA 11.008, an environment/natural resources and science/technology R&D activity category, and the cooperative agreement instrument (which typically implies substantial agency involvement compared with a standard grant). Additional application help links were provided through NOAA's Office of Education/Office of Environmental Stewardship and related grant guidance pages.

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