School to Shore: Creating Connections to the Gulf
Pensacola, Florida
Award: $145,200
Project Director: Megan Pratt
Project Summary: 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.
Advancing Water Literacy Among K-8 Children in Southeast Louisiana Through the “Living with Water” Program
New Orleans, Louisiana
Award: $472,000
Project Director: Shannon Blady
Project Summary: 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.
The Gulf Research Program is an independent, science-based program founded in 2013 to enhance the safety of offshore energy systems and to protect human health and environment by catalyzing advances in science, practice, and capacity to generate long-term benefits for the Gulf of Mexico region and the program. Established as part of legal settlements with the companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, GRP has $500 million for use over 30 years to fund grants, fellowships, and other activities related to research and development, education and training, and monitoring and synthesis.
Additional Information:
- “Gulf Research Program Awards Over $5M to Support Place-Based Education for K-8 Youth,” September 25, 2024.
- Gulf Research Program
- ASTC Blog. “Funding Opportunity: National Academies Gulf Research Program,” February 2, 2024.