This project provides funding to the massachusetts audubon society to implement its project, which will design, demonstrate, and disseminate environmental education practices, methods, and techniques,…

This project provides funding to the massachusetts audubon society to implement its project, which will design, demonstrate, and disseminate environmental education practices, methods, and techniques, that will serve to increase environmental literacy and encourage behavior that will benefit the environment in the massachusetts communities of springfield, worcester, and attleboro. The grantee will do this by providing resources and professional development services to support educator efficacy and confidence related to climate education. To achieve this goal the recipient will provide professional development and coaching services to educators as well as in-class lessons and field trip programming related to climate-change and climate-action. Additionally, the recipient will collaborate with educators and community stakeholders to develop a toolkit for teachers to implement student climate action projects. Activities:this project will increase public awareness and knowledge about environmental issues in attleboro, springfield, and worcester and provide teachers, students, and informal educators with the skills necessary to make informed decisions and to take responsible actions. Activities to be performed during this project period include: CO-planning with local schools and community partners, 6 hours of online professional development for all participating teachers and community partners, in-class climate-science classes for students, student climate-action field trips, student climate civic action projects, a post-school-year summer learning institute for adult participants, and the development of a climate democracy project toolkit. Subrecipient:this project will include 8 subrecipients: worcester public schools, springfield public schools, attleboro public schools, attleboro public library, worcester public library, springfield science museum, the massachusetts civic learning coalition, and the massachusetts institute of technology center for energy and environmental policy research. The recipient will provide worcester public schools, springfield public schools, and attleboro public schools with $3,500 each in the form of a fixed amount subaward. This will include a $2,500 stipend for one classroom teacher's participation in each school district, and a $1,000 total stipend to each participating school district. The classroom teacher will participate in an online learning course, up-front planning, support for student action projects, participation in the school sessions and the summer institute, and provide input and review of the toolkit. The school district will provide administrative support for distribution and payment of the teacher stipend, provide input on planning, aid in scheduling field trips and/or classroom visits, space and time for students to meet outside of classroom time if needed and provide input and review of the toolkit. The recipient will provide the attleboro public library, worcester public library, springfield science museum, massachusetts civic learning coalition, and massachusetts institute of technology for energy and environmental policy research with a $2,900 fixed amount subaward each. Each of these community partners will each participate in online learning, up-front planning, support for student action projects, providing feedback at the summer institute, and providing input and review of the toolkit. The total of subaward funds in this project is $25,000 and meets the 25% subaward requirement. Outcomes:IT is anticipated that this project will result in the following deliverables: 6-12 in-class instruction sessions provided by the massachusetts audubon society, development of a 'ready-to-implement' toolkit for teachers which will be made available online for free, 6 hours of online professional development training educators, and 120 students completing civic action projects. Major outcomes: a major outcome of this project is TR