Sierra Institute's NOAA K12 Environmental Literacy Proposal:

General plans for the proposal
(Note: the activities will be piloted at Greenville, then expanded out to other schools in the District)
  • Help initiate and support precipitation monitoring in local schools, focusing on K, 3, 6 (in line with Outdoor Core model), with goals to link data collection in elementary school with appropriate science classes in high school (pair HS mentors with elementary classrooms, with more data analysis in high school classes); this provides an opportunity for students to explore changes in timing, duration, amount and type of precipitation that falls (the major weather factor influencing natural resource concerns in the Sierra)
  • Continue to support natural resource education curriculum, with goal of integrating students into landscape monitoring and data collection efforts by landscape-scale collaboratives, specifically on projects that address weather-related (fire, flood, drought)/natural resources concerns, such as forest or watershed restoration projects; general community members will also be involved as possible, contributing to data collection efforts
    • Students will share out summaries of their monitoring efforts with relevant collaboratives
    • Data collected during precipitation monitoring and landscape monitoring will be used to inform the Institutes at the individual school sites, tailoring the Institutes to their particular area of the county/landscapes
  • Host quarterly Institutes focused on natural resource challenges, specifically fire, flood and drought. The final Institute will involve students developing Climate Resilience plans for their local communities based on what they learned in previous Institutes and data collected during monitoring trips
    • Students will share Climate Resilience Plans with local elected officials
  • Top teams from each school will participate in a Climate Adaptation Summit in Taylorsville. Teams will share out their plans with other teams, as well as local natural resource professionals. They will then work with these professionals to develop Community Stewardships Days, where they implement a climate stewardship project in their local communities, addressing natural resource concerns
     
Benefits to FRSC
  • More public involvement in and awareness of the work FRSC is advancing, including benefits to local communities
  • Opportunities to involve students and the public in completing needed monitoring work before and/or after project work is implemented
  • Additional outreach opportunities, including FRSC member participation in Institutes at local schools, Climate Adaptation Summit and Community Stewardship Days
  • Building student interest in the work of the Coalition and its partners, including potentially generating more student interest in natural resource careers
 
Needs from FRSC
Commitment to support this programming, including
  • Working with Sierra Institute staff to identify appropriate projects to have students/community members monitor
  • Working with Sierra Institute staff to plan and implement these monitoring days, including providing supervision as needed
  • Welcoming students from local schools to attend FRSC meetings to share out data they collected during monitoring work