This assistance agreement provides full federal funding in the amount of $100,000

The Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 awarded a $133,333 Project Grant to Earth Team A California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corp under the Environmental Education Grants Program (CFDA 66.951). The grant will fund environmental education activities in Richmond, CA from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023.

Specifically, Earth Team will educate K-12 students and teachers about their local watershed through hands-on restoration projects, field trips, and youth leadership programs. They will restore riparian habitats, maintain fish ladders, and monitor salmonid populations in Marsh Creek to improve the long-term health of the watershed. Earth Team will also provide $5k subawards each to five partner organizations to pay stipends for 42 student interns to participate. The project aims to increase environmental literacy and stewardship while demonstrating effective practices for watershed education.

This project provides funding to earth team 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 richmond, CA. The grantee will do this by educating students about their local watershed, youth leadership, and teacher trainings. Activities:this project will increase public awareness and knowledge about environmental issues in richmond, CA and provide students, teachers, and community members the skills necessary to make informed decisions and to take responsible actions. Activities to be performed during this project period include watershed restoration, field trips, youth leadership development, and teacher trainings.subrecipient:friends of marsh creek, american rivers, pittsburg high school, antioch high school, freedom/independence high school. These are 5 project partners that will use a $5,000 subaward each to pay participating student internship stipends. The internship activities are exclusively aligned with the program objectives, activities, and outcomes and earth team will track the payments made to the 42 participating students in 3 teams of 14 each.outcomes:IT is anticipated that this project will result in the following deliverables and expected outcomes of the project: short-term outcomes include new knowledge about watersheds, restoration of riparian habitats, maintenance of the fish ladders, and monitoring the salmonid population in the marsh creek watershed. The long-term outcome is to restore declining salmonid populations still present in this watershed. Students work with earth team staff and expert mentors to learn hands-on along with a robust network of local community organizations, municipal and county agencies. They acquire scientific and monitoring skills including water and soil quality testing, litter assessments, mapping and removal to prevent blocking the fish ladder, and more. Measurable changes in stewardship attitudes are reached within the project period among campus peers and families through presentations and surveys at educational events. Individual and campus-wide behavior changes are also expected during the project period with reduction of plastic litter polluting the creek, and reduced used of household harsh chemicals and garden pesticides.