Governor O’Malley’s Stream Restoration Challenge

September 27th, 2012 by Gabe Cohee

Check out the new Stream Restoration Challenge resources from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources!

With less than six weeks until the deadline for proposals, Governor O’Malley’s Stream Restoration Challenge has already brought organizations, governments, and school systems together to restore and protect local watersheds.  And we’re just getting started.

Maryland’s Stream Restoration Challenge is a competitive grant program open to local governments and non-government organizations to establish 1,000 acres of stream-side forests by 2015. For this challenge, the State and its partners will make available $6 million to plant forested stream buffers with the goals of improving Bay water quality and creating opportunities for middle and high school students to engage in service-learning and environmental literacy activities.

The word is out.  Local governments, school systems, watershed organizations, land trusts, and community groups have all been reaching out with project ideas and excitement for the potential of these projects.  Engaging the community, namely middle and high school students, in restorative practices will build their capacity, appreciation, and stewardship of our natural environment and local waterways – all leading to healthier Chesapeake and Coastal Bays.

As the deadline approaches, the state has made new resources available to potential applicants.  On the website, we have links to Marylanders Plant Trees, where applicants can find technical assistance, local nursery information, and tree coupons.  We have also posted Evaluation Guidelines, Application Components, and a Sample Budget.  Additionally, we have made the webinar presentation and Q&A session available on the site.

Don’t miss the great educational materials that the Bay Backpack has put together for the Challenge as well.

I have been greatly encouraged by the collaborative nature and innovative thinking around this Challenge, and I look forward to getting these projects in the ground with the help of Maryland students!

Filed under: Funding,News
Tags: , , , , ,
Gabe Cohee works for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Chesapeake & Coastal Service.

Green Strides Webinar: October Series

September 24th, 2012 by Sarah

The Green Strides Webinar Series is designed to connect school communities and state and local education officials to existing federal resources that support the three pillars identified in the U.S. Department of Education (US ED) Green Ribbon Schools recognition award program: (1) Reduced Environmental Impact and Costs, (2) Improved Health and Wellness, and (3) Effective Environmental and Sustainability Education. The series is hosted by the U.S. Department of Education, in conjunction with numerous other federal agencies. This October, the Green Strides Webinar Series will be conducted on:

Environmental Education for Everyone: EPA’s ‘K through Grey’ Resources
October 3, 2012 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

EPA and the National Environmental Education Foundation will present environmental education resources for schools and teachers to use to incorporate and integrate EE into daily classroom activities.

Register here!

Images: via EPA OEE.
The School Day Just Got Healthier
October 10, 2012 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

This session will cover the USDA back-to-school initiative which helps prepare students, school staff and leadership, and parents for the changes to school meals.  The webinar will highlight the resources available to help build support for healthy eating in schools.

Register here!

Images: via USDA
Why Environmental Health in Schools Matters
October 17, 2012 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Unhealthy school environments can affect attendance, concentration, and performance, as well as lead to expensive, time-consuming cleanup and remediation activities.  Learn more about what schools can do to better address environmental health and EPA’s new voluntary School Environmental Health: Development and Implementation Guidelines for States.

Register here!
Investigating the Climate System
October 24, 2012 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.

This webinar will introduce participants to the five problem-based learning educator guides in the NASA Investigating the Climate System series. Topics addressed will include wind, precipitation, energy, clouds and extreme weather.

Register here!

Image: via NASA
Filed under: Training
Tags: , , , ,
Sarah Brzezinski works for the Chesapeake Research Consortium as the Chesapeake Bay Program's Fostering Stewardship and Education Workgroup Team Staffer. She also serves as the content manager of Bay Backpack.

Marine Debris Art Contest

September 20th, 2012 by Sarah

Want to help raise awareness about marine debris? NOAA’s annual ‘Keep the Sea Free of Debris’ Art Contest begins September 24th. Tell your favorite Kindergarten through 8th graders to grab their art supplies, and show NOAA staff what marine debris means to them!

Filed under: News
Tags: , ,
Sarah Brzezinski works for the Chesapeake Research Consortium as the Chesapeake Bay Program's Fostering Stewardship and Education Workgroup Team Staffer. She also serves as the content manager of Bay Backpack.

Stream Restoration & Riparian Buffer Lesson Plans

September 17th, 2012 by Sarah

Everyone in the watershed lives within a few miles of a river, stream or creek, which are like pipelines from our communities to the Chesapeake Bay.

More than 100,000 streams, creeks and rivers thread through the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Many of these streams have been impacted by people and are in need of help. Restoration and riparian buffer projects provide a great opportunity to engage your students in real-world service learning projects.  These projects can help you get your students outside, physically active, AND learning about the environment.  If you live in Maryland, you can even request technical assistance and apply for funding for your project through the Stream Restoration Challenge!  Here are some great lesson plans, activities, and guides that you can use to help make your project a meaningful watershed educational experience:

  • Healthy People, Healthy Water – The goal of this curriculum guide, developed by project WET, is to make complex concepts of water quality relevant and meaningful for you and those you teach.   The program offers 25 hands-on activities, an Educator’s Guide, testing kits, training, and much more. Healthy Water, Healthy People is for educators or citizens interested in learning and teaching about contemporary water quality topics. This guide has been aligned with Maryland State curriculum and environmental literacy standards.
  • Restoring a Stream – This activity is a part of Virginia’s Water Resources – A Tool for Teachers, and is a great guide for educators looking to participate in the Stream Restoration Challenge. In this activity students will research and understand the importance of protecting and restoring streams and conduct a focus project on designing, establishing, and maintaining streamside forest buffers.  Students will then identify a local stream habitat in need of protection and restoration, develop an action project protect and restore the local stream habitat, seek technical assistance from local and state agencies, and  implement and monitor their restoration activity.
  • Lessons from the Bay: Riparian Buffers – In this Virginia Department of Education Lesson Plan, students will conduct research to learn the roles of riparian buffers, build a watershed model to illustrate the role of riparian buffers in protecting waterways from polluted runoff, form hypotheses, conduct an experiment, report findings and draw conclusions.
  • To Protect Your Streams, Protect Your Mountains – Penn State University’s College of Agriculture developed this lesson plan to help students define key watershed terms.  Through this lesson plan students will learn about point and non-point solution and will be able to how a healthy riparian buffer zone can improve non-point source pollution problems
  • Pollution in a Watershed – In this Chesapeake Bay FieldScope activity from National Geographic your students will be introduced to the role of wetlands and riparian buffers in the Chesapeake Bay as natural filters for sediment and nutrients that can negatively affect our waterways. Students will use what they learn about land cover and human actions to predict where pollution might occur.
Filed under: Teaching Resources
Tags: , , ,
Sarah Brzezinski works for the Chesapeake Research Consortium as the Chesapeake Bay Program's Fostering Stewardship and Education Workgroup Team Staffer. She also serves as the content manager of Bay Backpack.

Funding Fun: Fall 2012 Environmental Education Grants, Part II

September 10th, 2012 by Sarah

Lowes Toolbox for Education grants

Searching for funding or grant programs that you can use to support your Chesapeake Bay watershed, environmental and/or outdoor education-related activities and projects can be a time consuming pain… Skip the hassle by taking a look at this shortlist of funding sources that have deadlines this October and November:

Lowes Toolbox for Education

This grant program provides individual public K-12 school or non-profit parent group associated with a public K-12 school with financial tools to help improve their children’s schools.  This year, the foundation is challenging itself to seek ways to prioritize basic necessities while providing the greatest impact.  Lowe’s will donate $5 million to selected applicants at more than 1,000 different schools during the school year. Grants of between $2,000 and $5,000 per school are available.  Application Deadline: October 12, 2012 by 5:00 pm EST, however, if 1500 applications are received before the application deadline, then the application process will close.

Big Help Grants

The Nickelodeon & NEA Foundation Big Help Grants program is dedicated to the development and implementation of ideas, techniques, and approaches to addressing four key concerns — environmental awareness, health and wellness, students’ right to a quality public education, and active community involvement.  Multiple grants of up to $5,000 will be awarded to select applicants. Public school teachers or public school education support professionals practicing in the U.S. are eligible to apply. Application Deadline: October 15, 2012

Learning & Leadership Grants

NEA Foundation’s Learning & Leadership grants support public school teachers, public education support professionals, and/or faculty and staff in public institutions of higher education for one of the following two purposes: (1) Grants to individuals fund participation in high-quality professional development experiences, such as summer institutes or action research; or (2) Grants to groups fund collegial study, including study groups, action research, lesson study, or mentoring experiences for faculty or staff new to an assignment. All professional development must improve practice, curriculum, and student achievement. The grant amount is $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for groups engaged in collegial study. Application Deadline: October 15, 2012

Student Achievement Grants

The NEA Foundation provides grants to improve the academic achievement of students in U.S. public schools and public higher education institutions in any subject area(s). The proposed work should engage students in critical thinking and problem solving that deepen their knowledge of standards-based subject matter. The work should also improve students’ habits of inquiry, self-directed learning, and critical reflection. Proposals for work resulting in low-income and minority student success with honors, advanced placement, or other challenging curricula are particularly encouraged. Grant funds of between $2,000 and $5,000 may be used for resource materials, supplies, equipment, transportation, software, or scholars-in-residence. Although some funds may be used to support the professional development necessary to implement the project, the majority of grant funds must be spent on materials or educational experiences for students. Application Deadline: October 15, 2012

Maryland’s Stream Restoration Challenge (Maryland Only)

This competitive grant program, open to local governments and non-government organizations (including watershed organizations, school systems, and other academic institutions), seeks to establish 1,000 acres of stream-side forests by 2015. For this challenge, the state and its partners have allocated $6 million to plant forested stream buffers with the goals of improving Bay water quality and creating opportunities for middle and high school students to engage in service-learning and environmental literacy activities.  There will be a webinar on September 5 at 3:00 pm for any and all interested to learn more and ask questions – more info on the webinar is coming soon. Application Deadline: 5:00 p.m. on October 31, 2012

2012 Subaru Healthy Sprouts Award

The Subaru Healthy Sprouts Award recognizes and supports youth gardening programs focused on teaching about our environment, nutrition and hunger issues in the United States. To be eligible for the 2012 Healthy Sprouts Awards, your school or organization must plan to garden in 2012 with at least 15 children between the ages of 3 and 18.  This year, 50 schools or organizations will be awarded grant packages that include a $400 gift certificate to the Gardening with Kids catalog and online store for youth gardening supplies and supporting educational materials, NGA’s Eat a Rainbow Kit, full of engaging taste education and nutrition lessons, a set of hand tools and three pairs of child-sized gloves, a curriculum package from NGA, and a Plantcam to document the growth and changes of your garden.  Application Deadline: October 31, 2012

EPA’s Environmental Education Regional Grants

The EPA’s Office of Environmental Education has issued a new Request for Proposals for a grant program that will support environmental education projects that enhance the public’s awareness, knowledge, and skills to make informed environmental decisions and take responsible actions towards the environment. The total estimated funding for this competitive opportunity is approximately $2,160,000 nationwide. EPA expects to award one grant per Region (DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV are all in EPA Region 3) for an expected total of 10 grants nationwide; the award amount for each grant will be approximately, but no more than, $216,000, subject to the availability of funds, the quality and quantity of applications received, and other applicable considerations. EPA will host webinars on September 5th and 26th for potential applicants interested in additional information about the application process. Application Deadline: November 21, 2012

Funding Fun: Fall 2012 Environmental Education Grants, Part I

Looking for more funding opportunities?  Take a look at this shortlist of funding sources that have deadlines this September and early October!

Filed under: Funding
Tags: ,
Sarah Brzezinski works for the Chesapeake Research Consortium as the Chesapeake Bay Program's Fostering Stewardship and Education Workgroup Team Staffer. She also serves as the content manager of Bay Backpack.

Funding Fun: Fall 2012 Environmental Education Grants, Part I

September 3rd, 2012 by Sarah

Target Field Trip Grants support learning outside of the classroom.

It is early September in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and that means if you are a teacher you are either already back to school or are getting ready to go back.  With lesson plans to create and new students to work with, this is a very busy time of year for you.

As you get back into the swing of things this fall, be sure to keep funding in mind! To save you some time and to help support your Chesapeake Bay, environmental, and outdoor education-related activities and projects, we have assembled a list of grants with application deadlines in September and early October. Check them out below, and good luck with your applications!

America’s Great Outdoors: Connecting Youth to the Outdoors 2012 Grants

President Obama launched the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative on April 16, 2010. One of the overarching themes of this initiative is to offer opportunities to engage young people with the outdoors. In support of these goals, the National Environmental Education Foundation, in partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, U.S. Forest Service and The Bureau of Land Management are launching this grants program to catalyze efforts to increase the number of youth who build a connection with public lands as places for recreating, learning and volunteering. Approximately $243,000 in funding is available to support grant awards in the range of $2,500 to $20,000. Proposed projects should maximize hands-on outdoor engagement opportunities on public lands, and focus on education, recreation, and/or environmental stewardship. Application Deadline: September 19, 2012

Green Thumb Challenge

The Green Education Foundation and Gardener’s Supply Company have teamed up on an exciting funding opportunity for established youth garden projects nationwide! The organizations are calling on schools and youth groups to submit chronicles of their garden projects in a race to win a $5,000 prize. The award is designed to support the continued sustainability of an exceptional youth garden program that has demonstrated success, and has impacted the lives of kids and their community. Application Deadline: September 20, 2012

Target Field Trip Grants

Learning opportunities extend far beyond the classroom. But schools are finding it more and more difficult to bring students to museums, historical sites and cultural organizations. Field Trip Grants help give children these unique, firsthand learning experiences. As part of the program, each Target store will award three Target Field Trip Grants to K—12 schools nationwide—enabling one in 25 schools throughout the U.S. to send a classroom on a field trip. Each grant is valued up to $700. Application Deadline: September 30, 2012

Captain Planet Foundation Grants

These grants are intended to promote and support high-quality educational programs that enable children and youth to understand and appreciate our world through learning experiences that engage them in active, hands-on projects to improve the environment in their schools and communities. Funding will be awarded to non-profits, schools, and community-based environmental and educational organizations, and preferential consideration is given to requests seeking funding of $500 or less and to applicants who have secured at least 50% matching or in-kind funding for their projects. On occasion, grants of up to $2,500 may be awarded.  Application Deadline: September 30, 2012.

Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund Advisory Committee Grants (Virginia Only)

The Chesapeake Bay Restoration Advisory Committee accepts grant applications to conduct Chesapeake Bay-related education and restoration activities. This year under the subjects of environmental education, applicants are encouraged to submit proposals related to (1) supplementing and enhancing environmental training for educators; (2) expanding environmental educational opportunities and the use of existing educational resources (curricula, publications, field studies) in schools and community programs for students, teachers and adults; (3) increasing the involvement of students and the public in Bay restoration activities; or (4) increasing public support for Chesapeake Bay restoration by purchase of Chesapeake Bay license plates. Preferences will be given to environmental education and action-oriented conservation and restoration projects within Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay watershed. These grants are funded with monies from the sale of the special Chesapeake Bay license plate, Friend of the Chesapeake. This year $371,841 in grant monies will be awarded to eligible applicants. Application Deadline: October 1, 2012 by 5:00 pm EST

Toshiba Grants for Grades K-5

Do you teach in an elementary school classroom? Do you have an idea for improving math or science instruction in your classroom?  K-5 grade teachers are invited to use Toshiba America Foundation’s short application form to describe a set of lessons or a hands-on project they would like to introduce in their own classrooms. Any K-5 teacher in a public or private (not-for-profit) school is eligible for a grant to support science or math education up to $1,000 for project materials only.  Application Deadline: October 1st, each year.

Funding Fun: Fall 2012 Environmental Education Grants, Part II

Looking for more funding opportunities?  Take a look at this shortlist of funding sources that have deadlines this October and November!

Filed under: Funding
Tags: , , ,
Sarah Brzezinski works for the Chesapeake Research Consortium as the Chesapeake Bay Program's Fostering Stewardship and Education Workgroup Team Staffer. She also serves as the content manager of Bay Backpack.