The purpose of flow is to ensure that rural teachers and students have access to a high-quality, local watershed curriculum that can increase their environmental literacy

The target audience for this project includes teachers and students who come from schools in underserved communities. These areas include underserved black communities and communities living in moderate to high poverty. Many of these communities have been disproportionately impacted by environmental issues and historically marginalized, including plaquemines parish. This coastal parish has experienced the devastating effects of climate change first-hand as increased storm surge and land loss. Flow will take place in four of these underserved rural parishes (one per quarter), including plaquemines parish in the first quarter. A small cohort of teachers, up to five per parish will be recruited each quarter over the two-year project, which will impact up to 1,000 students in local middle and high schools. The cohorts will complete a series of tasks facilitated by PC staff and flow partners that will ensure they have adapted flow lessons, trained to implement the lesson, received a stem kit for the lesson and support implementing the lesson with students, participated in a field experience, and spent time reflecting on the project. The resulting teacher generated adapted mwees will be anchored in local phenomena and will directly impact the teachers and students understanding of environmental issues that impact their parishes. These flow workdays will be scheduled over the quarter to accommodate participants' needs. Upon completion of the series of tasks, teachers will be paid a $1,000 stipend. Flow will utilize the previously developed flow curriculum. These NOAA bwet-funded flow lessons incorporate each of the four essential mwee elements. Each series of investigations begins with an opportunity to explore the issue (issue definition) through a driving question. Teachers and students complete fieldwork (outdoor field experiences) with off-site investigations (buses are included in the budget). Students apply their new knowledge (synthesis/conclusion) to make connections to local environmental events, and teachers facilitate student-generated projects and actions (stewardship and civic action) as a natural progression of the flow investigations.