Select a region on the clickable map below to learn more about each of the funded 2020-2022 Watershed STEM projects! These projects are supported by NAAEE and NOAA include a variety of field experiences and environmental education lessons for youth in watersheds across the nation. Regions shown indicate areas that were eligible for project activities, based on where the NOAA Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) program exists. Starred areas represent locations of 2020-2022 projects. As they become available, materials and resources developed by these grantees will also be included here.
The NOAA-21st CCLC Watershed STEM Education Partnership program builds off of a successful pilot program implemented in 2017. Pilot evaluation results indicated that these projects excelled at making STEM activities relevant to students’ lives and improved students’ understanding and awareness of their local watersheds. Pilot grantees also forged strong collaborations with local 21st CCLC sites, establishing relationships that could be sustained beyond the pilot program funding. For more information about pilot projects, please visit the 2017 Pilot Program Archive.
Please note that the information displayed below reflects the proposals submitted prior to COVID-19. All Watershed STEM Grantees and partners are adapting to meet the needs of the students according to current health and safety guidelines.
Stanislaus County Office of Education | Modesto, CA
The Delta-Sierra Watershed Educational Experience project will provide learner-centered enrichment activities focused on raising awareness of the environmental challenges facing the Tuolumne River watershed. Students will investigate factors affecting salmon population, including water quality, temperature, flow and ecological disruptions to the Tuolumne River through locally relevant learning, collecting data, and synthesizing information. They will develop a conceptual understanding of environmental challenges facing watersheds and take action to improve the local watershed.
Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies | Homer, Alaska
The CACS and KWF propose to partner with the summer and afterschool programs of the 21st CCLC at the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Kenai Peninsula. We will leverage and adapt existing watershed education activities and NOAA partnerships to bring engaging, inspiring STEM learning opportunities to youth through guided investigation of local streams and full-day, immersive estuary field trips. Each cycle of place-based experiential learning will culminate in stewardship action projects and community celebration.
Cascadia Conservation District | Wenatchee, Washington
Upper-elementary aged students at two 21st CCLC sites in Wenatchee, WA will be engaged in after-school activities, family-led field trips, and summer field projects in the Wenatchee River watershed. Students will investigate the watershed through the lenses of fish, farms, forest, fun and family; and present their findings at a family cookout. The watershed is located in the eastern foothills of the Cascade mountains and includes endangered salmon, towns, fruit orchards, designated wilderness and popular outdoor recreation areas.
Environmental Science Center | Burien, Washington
The Environmental Science Center (ESC) is proposing to adapt its school-year Salmon Heroes program to work with students and teachers in four 21st CCLC sites in south King County, Washington. ESC will integrate Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs) into both after-school and summer curriculum, educate students on local watershed issues such as stormwater pollution, salmon habitat degradation, and ocean acidification, and improve stewardship action behaviors.
Puget Sound Estuarium | Olympia, Washington
The Puget Sound Estuary Exploration Program is designed to support STEM fundamentals. All Puget Sound Estuarium curricula are aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. The project will provide hands-on, South Sound estuarine ecology education in the classroom, at the Estuarium facility and in the field for 21st CCLC sites, K-12 school children within the North Thurston School District in Thurston County WA.
Florida Gulf Coast University | Fort Myers, Florida
The Watershed Education for Resilience in Southwest Florida (WATERS) project is an 8 week after school program, including with boat trips, focused on habitat shift, extreme weather, sea level rise and saltwater intrusion. Students will create models on the impacts of climate change and gain experience with the NOAA-funded Web-Based Interactive Decision-Support Tool for Adaptation of Coastal Urban and Natural Ecosystems in Southwest Florida (ACUNE) through new K-12 tools culminating in student action plans.
St. Lucie County Environmental Resources Department – The Oxbox Eco-Center | Port St. Lucie, Florida
The St. Lucie Watershed and Wildlife after-school program aspires to engage students in watershed themed STEM activities and develop positive attitudes towards watersheds. While focusing on wetland wildlife, students will discover St. Lucie County watersheds and their related threats. Students will become environmental stewards while practicing science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Place-based, indoor and outdoor learning will empower them to be the voices of St. Lucie watersheds by planning and implementing a service learning project.
University of New Orleans | New Orleans, Louisiana
ReNEW Watershed Stewards project partners the University of New Orleans Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences and ReNEW Schools three 21st CCLC sites to offer MWEEs in after-school and summer programming for approximately 90 economically disadvantaged students in grades 6-8. The project also equips ReNEW 21st CCLC educators with resources and best practices to lead classroom and outdoor MWEE activities in which students investigate local watershed issues and develop and take part in stewardship actions.
Citizens’ Environmental Coalition | Houston, Texas
Our goal is to empower students and equip after-school teachers to investigate issues related to our watershed and identify an action to solve a problem, which will improve the environmental quality of our community.
Learning Endeavors | Wailuku, Hawaii
Champions of Coastal Resilience will engage the youth at five 21st Century Community Learning Center Sites on the island of Molokai in STEM learning focused on the coastal regions of local watersheds. Participants will learn about climate change, the impacts of sea level rise, and the ecology of the coastlines in their own watersheds. Participating sites will integrate after school and intercession break learning opportunities that engage students in Meaningful Watershed STEM Education Experiences.
Pacific American Foundation | Kaneohe, Hawaii
Kilo Kai is a free extra-curricular ecology club for high school students of Windward Oʻahu. Run through PAF’s WIRED Program and Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology’s Center for Community Education. Our focus is to improve ecosystem health through bio-cultural restoration. Students are learning techniques to assess stream, soil, and reef health, and collaborate to conduct their own research. Students meet Sundays from 9:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on Moku o Lo'e, where they engage in snorkeling surveys, stream surveys, piloting drones/ROV’s, 3D mapping, microscopy, genetic work, field trips, and more. They also have the opportunity to earn College and high school credit.
Sea Research Foundation Inc. d/b/a Mystic Aquarium | Mystic, Connecticut
Watershed Action will engage 72 students in grades 3-5 in environmental education activities in the classroom and in the field, and will incorporate student-led, project-based investigations, including conserving and/or restoring the watershed in their community. Participants will learn from, and work alongside, NOAA personnel, and explore a NOAA reserve. They will be empowered to identify issues, ask questions, research answers, craft solutions, and develop and execute a stewardship plan related to their local watershed in Cranston, Rhode Island.
EdAdvance | Litchfield, Connecticut
School Grounds to Sound provides a sequential series of watershed STEM activities, river and estuary field trips, a local stewardship project, and teacher professional development around a single local focus: What goes on the ground goes in the Sound. Students will learn how trash travels through watersheds, with the driving question: How does what we do in Ansonia impact our watershed and LIS and how can we positively impact our watershed and LIS?
Massachusetts Audubon Society | Lincoln, Massachusetts
The goal is to address the need to prepare youth to be science-informed citizens empowered with the skills, knowledge, values, and identity to engage in conservation and stewardship action in their communities. Mass Audubon educators, 21st CCLC educators, and local research scientists will collaboratively design and pilot authentic, practice-based environmental-STEM curricula at OST sites in two cities in Massachusetts, reaching 180 students. Activities will include place-based learning, professional development, civic and community engagement, and mentoring.
Salem Sound Coastwatch | Salem, Massachusetts
Environmental Coaching for 21st Century Educators and Learners is a project model that aims to assist teachers and staff at two 21st CCLC sites with the integration of outdoor watershed education and STEM into the curriculum. To do this will require aligning the goals of each 21st CCLC site with the NAAEE/MWEE goals so that students are receiving meaningful, high quality, outdoor STEM programming that enhances literacy and social emotional learning.
Maine Audubon | Falmouth, Maine
Maine Audubon (MA) proposes to partner with Maine Discovery Museum (TMC) to deliver environmental science projects and place-based, hands-on STEM lessons to three 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) sites in the Bangor School District in Bangor, Maine. This River in My Backyard (RMB) project will focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) skills and knowledge centered around the Penobscot River Watershed, its connected wetlands, and urban areas, and helping children to form deeper associations with this important river and its significance for endangered Atlantic Salmon and other wildlife species. Custom designed science kits and field journals will provide students the tools to better immerse students in their work, and the program will include an on-the-ground habitat restoration project as well as other stewardship opportunities.
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum | Vergennes, Vermont
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum will work with four 21st CCLC sites and Lake Champlain Sea Grant educators to create two years of out-of-school, in-water MWEEs combining snorkeling skills with watershed science to improve STEM skills and inspire students to become lake stewards. Through outdoor experiences, students will develop STEM skills that prepare them for education and career success while building the environmental education skills of 21st CCLC staff and supporting the objectives of 21st CCLCs.
Severson Dells Nature Center | Rockford, Illinois
Severson Dells Nature Center will work with four schools in Rockford Public Schools District 205 to engage them in meaningful watershed experiences to help them better understand their connection to their local watersheds, improve their understanding of the process of science, and how they can collect and use data to tell important stories about their environment. Students will also learn about a wide variety of watershed based careers.
Flint River Watershed Coalition | Flint, Michigan
The FRWC will collaborate with the Genesee Intermediate School District's 21st CCLC program to develop an out-of-school time (OST) watershed STEM curriculum grounded in water quality monitoring and related data-driven and youth-led community action projects. We will work with three sites and up to 12 educators serving middle and high school students. Partners from Discovering PLACE, Michigan State University Extension, and Genesee County Parks will collaborate to construct a framework for professional development that cross-trains staff from the 21st CCLC and environmental education organizations that will engage students in Meaningful Watershed Education Experiences in the OST environment. This mutually beneficial staff training will expand capacity for both parties of educators, increase the sustainability of multiple community partnerships, and serve as a resource for others seeking to utilize freshwater place-based enrichment to strengthen OST programming.
Inland Seas Education Association | Suttons Bay, Michigan
Inland Seas Education Association is proposing a series of MWEEs with seven 21st CCLC sites designed to inspire students through STEM engagement. This project will also provide modeling, training, and support for 21st CCLC staff as they learn best practices to implement MWEEs into programming. Together, staff and students will improve their understanding of local watersheds and gain skills in STEM, while conducting stewardship action projects in their community that will protect the Great Lakes.
West Michigan Environmental Action Council | Grand Rapids, Michigan
Youth from the Oakridge Upper Elementary 21st CCLC site in Muskegon, Michigan will spend ten weeks during the summer months gaining knowledge and experiencing E-STEM on land and in the water. After learning about environmental concerns their community faces, they will form an action plan that encourages stewardship in students and motivates the community to take action to help their community.
Friends of Reinstein Woods | Depew, New York
Students at three 21st CCLC sites will explore how their schoolyard affects the Niagara River/Lake Erie Watershed. Students will engage in weather and water quality studies in their schoolyard and on field trips to Lake Erie. Hands-on STEM experiences will inform their stewardship action, including videos that communicate positive watershed protection messages. Staff will learn content and methods for STEM schoolyard activities and forge a lasting partnership with a local environmental education provider.
New York Sea Grant (Cornell) | Buffalo, New York
This community gardening project will engage Niagara Falls City School District students in the 21st century programs by collaborating with local environmental organizations and community partners. Students learning opportunities will be maximized by utilizing existing living laboratories that are part of their community. Through native plantings geared to improve biodiversity and water quality, as well as promote healthy eating and food security, students and their families will foster a sense of community and responsibility through hands-on activities and local, place-based education.
Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park | Annapolis, Maryland
The From East to West (E2W) project is a year-long program that works with students in afterschool programming provided through Partnering for Youth (PFY) Project A to Z at three Queen Anne's County Public elementary schools (QACPS). Through E2W, students participate in a Meaningful Watershed Education Experience (MWEE) and explore how their actions impact their local waterways and how those waterways connect to and affect the larger Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Allegheny College | Meadville, Pennsylvania
Meadville Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund (also called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [MLK] Mentoring program) students will be engaged in hands-on watershed STEM education through the framework of MWEEs and water quality monitoring with Creek Connections, an environmental education outreach program at Allegheny College. Funding will cover water quality monitoring equipment, staff to implement the project, professional development opportunities and travel to the MLK Mentoring program, a PA 21st CCLC.
Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Future Watershed Steward program will focus on the urban watershed in Philadelphia and the issues involved in protecting our city's shared water resources. The program will engage high school youth in data collection, freshwater mussel research and experiential activities in order to foster a sense of stewardship for the conservation of watersheds. The central question is how can we keep our source waters clean and why is this important for all?
Stroud Water Research Center | Avondale, Pennsylvania
Stroud Water Research Center is partnering with four 21st CCLC sites to deliver watershed education programming and professional development in freshwater-focused science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) using the Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) framework. The Watershed STEM MWEE after-school and summer programming hopes to engage nearly 200 students from sites focused on serving migrant English language learners and residents of low socioeconomic status areas. The Stroud Center will pilot and lead eight hands-on activities at elementary, middle, and high school CCLCs. Youth will discover real-world water science careers, use STEM tools (e.g., Model My WatershedⓇ - an online GIS modelling platform) to analyze how human interactions affect their local watershed, and explore community-based stewardship actions for healthy watersheds and healthy people.
Boxerwood Education Association | Lexington, Virginia
“Trail Blazers" introduces MWEEs for three CCLCs in our rural VA headwaters region. The elementary projects connect students to MWEE & STEM habits of mind/action in a summer camp structure. Children investigate properties of a local river and its parks. Middle school youth pursue MWEEs in an afterschool format. In a series of hiking and paddling expeditions, these youths investigate how outdoor recreation impacts a local river and then, as leaders, take action.
Lynchburg Water Resources | Lynchburg, Virginia
The Lynchburg SWELL is a hands on, service based, environmental education program that focuses on student programming while expanding the program outside of the students' schools into their homes and communities. The program will engage students in MWEE activities with their parents and provide valuable professional development to their instructors. The goal is for this grant to be a catalyst for programming that can be shared with all of the 21st CCLC sites in Lynchburg.
Alliance for Chesapeake Bay | Richmond, VA
Come Outside to Teach is a two-part project that combines a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) after-school program for students with monthly professional development sessions for educators. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, James River Park System, and Science Museum of Virginia will work with the 21st Century Community Learning Center partner, NextUp RVA from Richmond, VA, and deliver the program at two school sites. The goals are to boost the comfort level with teaching outdoors and broaden environmental literacy skills through investigations of local watershed issues affecting the Richmond community.
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