NOAA-SEC-OED-2022-2006995 NOFO Report.pdf

Environmental Literacy Program: Increasing community resilience to extreme weather & climate change

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Funding Opportunity Description 6

A. Program Objective 6 B. Program Priorities 14 C. Program Authority 15

II. Award Information 15 A. Funding Availability 15 B. Project/Award Period 16 C. Type of Funding Instrument 16

III. Eligibility Information 17 A. Eligible Applicants 17 B. Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement 18 C. Other Criteria that Affect Eligibility 18

IV. Application and Submission Information 18 A. Address to Request Application Package 18 B. Content and Form of Application 18 C. Unique Entity Identifier and System for Award Management (SAM) 30 D. Submission Dates and Times 30 E. Intergovernmental Review 30 F. Funding Restrictions 31 G. Other Submission Requirements 31

V. Application Review Information 31 A. Evaluation Criteria 31 B. Review and Selection Process 35 C. Selection Factors 37 D. Anticipated Announcement and Award Dates 38

VI. Award Administration Information 38 A. Award Notices 38 B. Administrative and National Policy Requirements 38 C. Reporting 42

VII. Agency Contacts 43 VIII. Other Information 43

Notice of Federal Funding Page 1 of 51

NOTICE OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Federal Agency Name(s): Office of the Under Secretary (USEC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce

Funding Opportunity Title: Environmental Literacy Program: Increasing community resilience to extreme weather & climate change

Announcement Type: Initial

Funding Opportunity Number: NOAA-SEC-OED-2022-2006995

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 11.008, NOAA Mission-Related Education Awards

Dates: For Priority 1, pre-applications are required and will be used to determine which institutions are invited to submit full applications to this priority. The deadline for pre-applications is 11:59 pm EDT on November 1, 2021 and the deadline for Priority 1 full applications is 11:59 pm EDT on March 17, 2022. For Priority 2, only full applications are requested and the deadline for Priority 2 applications is 11:59 pm EST on January 25, 2022.

Note that NOAA’s Office of Education staff will be available to answer questions weekly, Monday through Friday until 5:00 PM Eastern Time. All pre-applications and full applications must be submitted online through Grants.gov; no hard copy or emailed pre- or full applications will be accepted. Grants.gov requires applicants to register with the system and with https://sam.gov/content/home prior to submitting any application. These registration processes can take several weeks and involve multiple steps. In order to allow sufficient time for this process, applicants should register as soon as they decide they intend to apply, even if they are not yet ready to submit their pre-applications. Pre-applications and full applications submitted through Grants.gov are automatically date/time stamped when they are validated and submitted to the agency.

PLEASE NOTE: It is recommended that you review the application submission steps that Grants.gov will perform to understand how to structure your submission timeline. You can also check your application status through this link:

https://www.grants.gov/help/html/help/Applicants/CheckApplicationStatus/CheckApplicationSta tus.htm.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE: For a list of software applications that allow you to successfully navigate the Grants.gov pages and complete your submission visit

Notice of Federal Funding Page 2 of 51 http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/applicant-faqs.html.

For Priority 1, two informational teleconferences with the program officers will occur on shortly after the publication of this opportunity. An informational teleconference for Priority 2 with the program officers will occur in late fall 2021. Interested applicants may obtain the exact teleconference dates, phone number, and related information by visiting https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/apply. Whenever possible, individuals from the same institution should try to join the teleconference from the same phone line to maximize our ability to host as many interested institutions as possible.

Funding Opportunity Description: The goal of this funding opportunity is for communities to have sufficient collective environmental literacy to take actions that build resilience to extreme weather and climate change in ways that contribute to community health, social cohesion, and socio-economic equity. These communities will be composed of children, youth, and adults who participate in formal and/or informal education experiences that develop their knowledge, skills, and confidence to: 1) reason about the ways that human and natural systems interact globally and locally, including the acknowledgement of disproportionately distributed vulnerabilities; 2) participate in civic processes; and 3) incorporate scientific information, cultural knowledge, and diverse community values. Efforts to build environmental literacy should ultimately aim to reduce risks from current and future environmental hazards through climate-smart and inclusive decision making and long-term stewardship of healthy ecosystems, all the while promoting a low-carbon economy.

Projects should demonstrate how they will engage children, youth, and/or adults to build these capabilities, particularly through active and social learning, during the award period. Projects should leverage and incorporate relevant state and local resilience plans and collaborate with individuals and institutions that are involved in efforts to develop or implement those plans.

Projects may focus on a single location or multiple locations and a single type of environmental hazard or a range of hazards that impact a community or communities. Projects will be based on the established scientific evidence about current and future extreme weather and climate change hazards facing communities and should consider relevant socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological factors in the targeted location(s). Particular attention should be paid to community members that have greater exposure to, and fewer resources to deal with, extreme weather and/or climate change impacts. Projects should support diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate justice in all aspects of the project.

NOAA’s Community Resilience Education Theory of Change should be used to inform key aspects of the project, including its design and logic model. Projects must also relate to NOAA’s

Notice of Federal Funding Page 3 of 51 mission in at least one of the following areas: ocean, coastal, Great Lakes, weather, and climate sciences and stewardship. They must also utilize NOAA’s scientific data, data access tools, data visualizations, and/or other physical and intellectual assets available on these topics. In order to facilitate the use of NOAA’s assets, projects are strongly encouraged to partner with relevant NOAA entities (offices, programs, etc.) and/or NOAA employees and affiliates.

Finally, projects may also consider incorporating proposed activities that will build knowledge, skills, and competencies that are transferable to climate resilience careers and may also help target audiences develop personal agency to effect change in their communities.

This funding opportunity has two priorities, numbered without regard to importance for funding.

Priority 1 awards will support new projects taking place in the Central and Eastern Regions of the United States. These regions include the following states: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The entirety of a project must only serve audiences located in one or more of the listed states.

Priority 2 awards will support the evolution of projects funded under the 2015-2018 funding opportunities from this program (NOAA-SEC-OED-2015-2004408, NOAA-SEC-OED 2016- 2004737, and NOAA-SEC-OED-2018-2005455). The full list of awards that support or supported eligible projects can be found here: https://go.usa.gov/xFWXS. Projects for this priority must be implemented within the United States and its territories.

For both priorities of this funding opportunity, eligible applicants are limited to institutions of higher education; K-12 public and independent schools and school systems; other nonprofits, including community-based organizations and informal education institutions, such as museums, zoos, and aquariums; state and local government agencies; and Indian tribal governments in the United States. For-profit organizations, foreign institutions, and individuals are not eligible to apply; however, for-profit organizations, foreign institutions, and individuals may participate as project partners. Likewise, federal agencies are not eligible to receive federal assistance under this announcement, but may be project partners.

All projects must be between 2 and 5 years in duration and the total federal amount requested from NOAA for each project must be no less than $250,000 and no more than $500,000 for all years of the project, including direct and indirect costs.

It is anticipated that awards funded under this announcement and selected this fiscal year will be

Notice of Federal Funding Page 4 of 51 made by September 30, 2022 and have a start date no earlier than October 1, 2022.

Note: Links to helpful information for applying to this announcement are available at https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/apply.

Notice of Federal Funding Page 5 of 51

FULL ANNOUNCEMENT TEXT

I. Funding Opportunity Description

A. Program Objective

1. Overview

The NOAA Office of Education’s Environmental Literacy Program (ELP) supports projects that educate and inspire people to use Earth system science toward improving ecosystem stewardship and increasing resilience to environmental hazards (NOAA's Education Strategic Plan 2021-2040). Since the program’s inception in 2005, ELP’s grants have supported formal and informal education activities at local, regional, and national levels to address NOAA’s mission of science, service, and stewardship. This mission is directed toward a vision of the future where communities and their ecosystems are healthy and resilient in the face of sudden or prolonged change. A vision of resilient communities guides NOAA and its partners in a collective effort to reduce the vulnerability of communities and ecological systems in the short-term, while helping society avoid or adapt to potential long term environmental, social, and economic changes. To achieve this vision, NOAA strives to understand current Earth system conditions, project future changes, and help people make informed decisions that reduce their vulnerability to environmental hazards and stresses that emerge over time, while at the same time increase their ability to cope with them (NOAA’s Next Generation Strategic Plan 2010). To make the best social, economic, and environmental decisions, individuals should have the ability to understand scientific processes, consider uncertainty, and reason about the ways that human and natural systems interact (NOAA's Education Strategic Plan 2021-2040). Therefore, education plays a critical role in achieving NOAA’s mission and vision.

Goal 3 from NOAA’s Education Strategic Plan is “Individuals and communities are ready, responsive, and resilient to the increasing challenges and impacts of hazardous weather, changes in climate, and other environmental threats monitored by NOAA” (NOAA's Education Strategic Plan 2021-2040). Ensuring the United States (U.S.) is composed of resilient communities has never been more urgent. It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change and that these activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land at an unprecedented rate in at least the last 2000 years. As a result, extreme climate events, including heat waves, heavy rainfall, and droughts are now more frequent and severe (IPCC 2021). Climate change is already affecting every region on Earth, in multiple ways, resulting in observable impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and the benefits they provide to society. Such changes are projected to continue without substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions (Jay et al. 2018, IPCC 2021).

Notice of Federal Funding Page 6 of 51

In the U.S., these observed changes and climate impacts include, but are not limited to:

severe storms, hurricanes, flooding, heavy precipitation events, persistent drought, heat waves, wildfires, increased global temperatures, acidification of the ocean, and sea level rise (IPCC 2021; Jay et al. 2018). The U.S. is experiencing a rising number of costly and damaging weather and climate events. From 1980 to 2020, the annual average number of events that result in losses exceeding $1 billion per event is 7.1. For the most recent 5 years (2016–2020), the annual average is 16.2 events. In 2020, there were a record 22 events – including 13 severe storms, 7 tropical cyclones, drought, and wildfire (NCEI 2021).

Communities in the U.S. are facing challenges of not only recovering from on-going extreme weather events and climate impacts, but also preparing for a future of more frequent and damaging events caused by climate change (Lempert et al. 2018; NCEI 2020; Weather-ready Nation: NOAA’s National Weather Service Strategic Plan 2019—2022). Climate change threatens human health and safety, ecosystem health, and social and economic well-being (USGCRP 2018). The geographic distribution of climate change impacts is uneven, and long-standing socio-economic inequities heighten vulnerabilities for underserved groups.

These threats become even greater with the increasing rates of greenhouse gas emissions (USGCRP 2018). The severity of future climate impacts will depend largely on international-scale, national-scale, and community-level actions taken to ambitiously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the changes that will continue to occur.

To prepare for a future of increasing climate impacts, communities need to implement more policies and practices that allow their members, regardless of socioeconomic status, to thrive and be resilient. These policies and practices should be informed by engaged community members and leaders who understand the causes of climate change and its impacts on their own lives now and in the future. Decisions about how to build more resilient and equitable communities should be based on scientific, traditional, and community knowledge, and represent the values of society because this contributes to better accepted and more robust policies (Bozeman and Sarewitz 2011). Increasing environmental literacy among community members ensures that they comprehend the complex ways that human and natural systems interact, both globally and locally, and have the required skills, motivation, and confidence to participate in decisions that inform public policies affecting their lives and their communities.

Education is the primary means for building environmental literacy. Nevertheless, despite decades of efforts to educate about climate change, many community members do not prioritize climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions. This is evident in the lack of political will and civic engagement on the issue (Leiserowitz 2019). While there are many

Notice of Federal Funding Page 7 of 51 reasons for this inaction that are not related to education, many educational approaches to date have been ineffective to inspire change because they have been too focused on the causes, the global scale of the problem, and impacts too distant from the learners (Flora et al.

2014; Leiserowitz et al. 2019). Further, as learners acquire more knowledge about climate change, they are often stifled by feelings of hopelessness and anxiety caused by comprehending the magnitude of the impacts and the complexity of the problem (Doherty and Clayton 2011; Ojala 2012; Clayton, Manning, and Hodge 2014). Together, these challenges call for different approaches that focus on educating for community resilience to extreme weather and climate change.

For these reasons, NOAA’s ELP grant competitions have, since 2015, concentrated on community resilience education and funded approaches that are climate solutions-oriented, locally focused, and engage, educate, and empower participants to take action individually and collectively. Based on data and knowledge coming from funded projects and literature sources, in 2020, ELP developed and published NOAA’s Community Resilience Education Theory of Change (noaa.gov/elp-resilience-TOC). This framing document provides a conceptual framework for the ways in which community resilience education can lead to increased community engagement and civic action, ultimately leading to a healthier, more resilient, and equitable society (Bey et al. 2020). As such, it lays out many important concepts, definitions, outcomes, and goals that structure this grant program, including the goal of this funding opportunity.

The goal of this funding opportunity is for communities to have sufficient collective environmental literacy to take actions that build resilience to extreme weather and climate change in ways that contribute to community health, social cohesion, and socio-economic equity. These communities are composed of children, youth, and adults who participate in formal and/or informal education experiences that develop their knowledge, skills, and confidence to: 1) reason about the ways that human and natural systems interact globally and locally, including the acknowledgement of disproportionately distributed vulnerabilities; 2) participate in civic processes; and 3) incorporate scientific information, cultural knowledge, and diverse community values in decision making (Bey et al. 2020, pp. 6,22). Efforts to build environmental literacy should ultimately aim to reduce risks from current and future environmental hazards through climate-smart and inclusive decision making and long-term stewardship of healthy ecosystems, all the while promoting a low-carbon economy.

2. Description of Project Activities

Projects should develop the collective environmental literacy necessary for communities to take actions that build resilience to extreme weather and climate change in ways that

Notice of Federal Funding Page 8 of 51 contribute to community health, social cohesion, and socio-economic equity. NOAA’s Community Resilience Education Theory of Change should be used to inform key aspects of the project, including its design and logic model. This first version of the theory of change identifies six causal pathways, although these are not the only possible pathways, which include approaches, audiences, and outcomes that can lead to the ELP goal (Bey et al. 2020).

The theory of change also includes many important definitions, including a definition for community resilience education: “Educational approaches that develop community-level environmental literacy to understand threats and implement solutions that build resilience to extreme weather, climate change, and other environmental hazards. Environmental literacy here includes the knowledge, skills, and confidence to: (1) reason about the ways that human and natural systems interact globally and locally, including the acknowledgement of disproportionately distributed vulnerabilities; (2) participate in civic processes; and (3) incorporate scientific information, cultural knowledge, and diverse community values when taking action to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from environmental hazards, including mitigating and adapting to climate change” (Bey et al. 2020, pp. 6, 22). Each individual in a community does not need to develop their knowledge, skills, and confidence to the same extent, but the community should collectively and sufficiently have these capabilities for use in resilience building initiatives (National Academies 2016). The theory of change describes the characteristics of community resilience education projects. The following paragraphs describe how projects should attempt to incorporate these characteristics. Note: This theory of change will evolve over time and does not comprehensively cover every way in which education can play a role in building community resilience. If your project plans to implement activities that are not well represented in the theory of change, please include a justification for that as part of your application.

Projects should support diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate justice in all aspects of the project, i.e., target audience(s), partners, project leadership team, location of project and its potential impacts, and use of culturally appropriate approaches. Particular attention should be paid to community members that have greater exposure to, and have fewer resources to deal with, the extreme weather and/or climate change impacts that are the focus of the proposed project. Relevant socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological factors in the location(s) should be described, as well as the culturally appropriate approaches.

Projects should demonstrate how they will engage community members in social and active learning. Social learning is learning that occurs within social units or communities of practice through social interactions between individuals within social networks (Reed et al.

2010). Active learning is a process whereby learners actively construct new ideas, perspectives, understanding, etc., and/or reconstruct, add to, or completely dismantle old

Notice of Federal Funding Page 9 of 51 ideas (Bransford et al. 2000). Active and social learning often go hand in hand. These learning approaches--such as citizen science, deliberative forums, participatory decision making and mapping exercises, and scenario-based or role-playing activities and games--emphasize exploring and implementing community-scale solutions and create venues for social learning to take place. Both active learning and social learning share commonalities in that they bring people together to consider complex scenarios and to work collectively toward a shared goal. The theory of change contains descriptions of active and social learning approaches that build resilience (Bey et al. 2020 pp. 33-37).

Projects should promote action by the target audience(s) by facilitating opportunities for civic engagement and empowering participants to be agents of change. These approaches should work to inspire hope in the target audiences.

Projects should support local and state-based efforts to increase resilience by using relevant regional, state, and/or local resilience plans and partnering with institutions and individuals, including, but not limited to, resilience practitioners, involved in efforts to develop or implement those plans (see https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/resilience-assets for FEMA’s list of state hazard mitigation officers).

Projects may focus on a single location or multiple locations. They should focus on the most pertinent current and future environmental hazard or a range of hazards that impact a community or communities in the selected location(s). The selected hazard(s) should be informed by the regional, state, and/or local resilience plan(s) that is being incorporated into the project. Projects should be based on the established scientific evidence regarding current and future extreme weather and climate impacts facing the target community or communities. In addition to natural science information, projects should incorporate knowledge about local social, cultural, historical, and economic factors that mediate participants’ capacity to reason about the ways human and natural systems interact. Finally, projects should focus on solutions and their inherent trade-offs in ways that clearly foster the implementation of those solutions within their community/ies.

Projects may consider incorporating proposed activities that will build knowledge, skills, and competencies that are transferable to climate resilience careers and may also help target audiences develop personal agency to effect change in their communities. Although such work is not currently a direct focus of a pathway in the theory of change, rapid decarbonization of our economy will require many more workers trained in these areas, so preparing more people to be able to pursue these careers will economically empower them. It is also important that the future resilience workforce reflects the diversity of U.S.

communities as this will help achieve equitable resilience.

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Please note: There may be additional funding available for projects that implement the proposed Civilian Climate Corps Initiative (Exec Order No. 14008). Applicants or partners could be existing Corps Network members or other organizations that offer paid training, career skills development, and/or job pathways into climate resilience careers. Rapid decarbonization of our economy will require many more workers trained in these areas, so preparing more people to be able to pursue these careers will economically empower them.

Minimally, projects should include information for target audiences on possible climate resilience-related careers and pathways that lead to these careers. For example, NOAA has many student and workforce opportunities of which project participants should be made aware (https://www.noaa.gov/education/opportunities/students).

In addition, projects must utilize NOAA’s scientific data, data access tools, data visualizations, and/or other physical and intellectual assets available on these topics, e.g., the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. In order to facilitate the use of NOAA’s assets, projects are strongly encouraged to partner with relevant NOAA entities (offices, programs, etc.) and/or NOAA employees and affiliates. NOAA's education website (https://www.noaa.gov/education) and an additional list of relevant assets (https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/resilience-assets) provide links to NOAA datasets, potential NOAA partners, and other resilience-related assets from federal and non federal organizations.

There are a number of NOAA programs that offer a significant amount of climate science and resilience expertise. If the project location includes areas that are served by NOAA’s Sea Grant College programs, National Estuarine Research Reserves, the National Coastal Zone Management Program, and/or NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA), applicants are encouraged to consider involving representatives from these programs as project advisors or partners. Applicants can locate their local/regional NOAA resilience expertise as well as other non-NOAA experts at https://toolkit.climate.gov/help/partners.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to review community resilience education projects funded by this program since 2015 and proposed projects should be informed by the lessons learned by these grantees. Information on these funded projects can be found on our Awards database: https://go.usa.gov/xFPXw. Every 18-24 months, NOAA convenes grantees to share ideas, best practices, and lessons learned from their NOAA-funded resilience education projects. To ensure your project benefits from the latest learning from the ELP community of practice, please see the 2021 NOAA Environmental Literacy Program

Notice of Federal Funding Page 11 of 51

Resilience Education Grantee Workshop Report (https://go.usa.gov/xFhpX).

3. Target Audiences

The target audiences for this funding opportunity are: children, youth, and/or adults, and may also include informal educators (including interpreters and docents) and formal educators (pre- or in-service, and also school administrators). Professionals already working in the area of community resilience and higher education students are not target audiences for this funding opportunity.

Education includes lifelong learning that occurs within the formal (grades K-12) system and outside of it. There is no single ideal age audience to engage. Rather the audiences engaged will vary by community and the hazard(s) being faced.

There is particular interest in projects that specifically engage underserved members of the community, defined here as people who have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life, who are also highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. (Exec. Order No. 13985, 2021). A recent report from the EPA notes which groups are most vulnerable to climate change impacts (EPA 2021). These underserved and highly vulnerable community members face greater exposure to extreme weather and climate change impacts, and they have fewer resources to prepare for and adapt to the associated risks (Ebi et al. 2018, Hoffman et al. 2020). Projects should employ approaches and partnerships that are appropriate for the targeted underserved and highly vulnerable population(s).

Projects are strongly encouraged to develop meaningful partnerships with community-based organizations (CBOs), particularly those from underserved and highly vulnerable communities within the area(s) served by the project. CBO partners should contribute to the conceptualization of the project, as well as its implementation and may be part of project leadership or advisory teams. In successful partnerships, organizations have shared goals and work together to share resources, communicate effectively, collaborate on decision-making, and competently engage members of diverse cultures and expertise (Israel et al. 2005).

Adequate compensation should be provided for community-based organization partners and community members for the effort they are contributing to the project. Applicants are also encouraged to apply the NAAEE’s Community Engagement Guidelines for Excellence (NAAEE 2017) in developing their project plans for engagement of target audiences.

Applicants are encouraged to use demographic, weather and climate data as a basis for determining where work will occur and the audience this work will serve and describe how

Notice of Federal Funding Page 12 of 51 these data were used to support programmatic decisions.

4. Project Evaluation

All projects should include an evaluation component. Project descriptions for full applications should include robust evaluation plans. (There is no requirement to describe evaluation plans in the pre-application). Evaluation plans should be informed by NOAA’s Community Resilience Education Theory of Change (noaa.gov/elp-resilience-TOC) and include key evaluation questions, measurement of the project’s progress towards meeting the stated project goals and objectives, as well as the goal of this funding program. Plans for formative and summative project evaluations should be well constructed and should use best practices for evaluating the type of work proposed. Discussion of both formative and summative evaluations should be included in the project description and in the budget section.

Project evaluation should include assessment of changes in the target audiences' attitudes, knowledge, skills, and/or behaviors as a result of the activities undertaken. The impact of the proposed project on the target audiences must be measurable during the award period.

Potential impacts of the project beyond the award period should be described. The evaluation should reflect practices of cultural competence (AEA 2011). During the award period, reports of both outputs and outcomes for a project will be expected, including collecting demographic data on participants.

Some aspects of project evaluation may require institutional review board (IRB) approval. It is the applicant’s responsibility to determine if this is necessary and report back to NOAA.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Human Research Protections website has resources to help you determine the necessity of IRB approval. You can find those resources at: https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/decision-charts-2018/index.html. As part of the evaluation plan, applicants must provide, in writing, a description of whether or not IRB review will be sought and a justification if not (if applicable). Also, if IRB review is needed the applicant must include a timeline for IRB review, and no expenditures related to data collection may occur until IRB approval has been obtained.

Project evaluation should be handled by external professional evaluators or by internal staff who have significant experience with each type of evaluation and are not otherwise substantively involved with the project. Applicants should include funding for project evaluation in their budgets. While the costs for project evaluation may vary considerably, 10 to 20 percent of the total budget is a reasonable estimate of costs associated with a

Notice of Federal Funding Page 13 of 51 comprehensive project evaluation. NOAA will ask recipients to submit fully developed and updated evaluation plans after the start date of their award.

5. Dissemination of Project Results and Products

To further inform the broad fields of K-12 and informal science education about what will be learned from the project, applicants are encouraged to develop appropriate project dissemination strategies. All project leaders funded through this program are part of an ELP Community Resilience Education community of practice and are expected to attend regular meetings of the community to share their findings and engage their peers in active discussion of relevant best practices. This information sharing can additionally be accomplished by attending and presenting at annual meetings of professional societies. Principal Investigators (PIs) must provide summative project evaluation reports to NOAA. If applicable, PIs may also post the projects’ finalized evaluation reports to www.informalscience.org and NOAA Environmental Literacy Program’s “completed project summaries” webpage (noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/summaries). PIs will be expected to also include any resulting instructional products and materials in the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Science and Math Informal Learning Educators (SMILE) Pathway (www.howtosmile.org) and/or the Climate and Energy Education Network (CLEAN) Resource Collection (https://cleanet.org/clean/educational_resources/collection/index.html).

6. Awards Dates and Mission Goal

NOAA anticipates that awards funded under this announcement during this fiscal year (FY 2022) will be made by September 30, 2022 and that the projects funded under this announcement will have a start date no earlier than October 1, 2022.

This funding opportunity meets NOAA's four Mission Goals: Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Weather-Ready Nation, Healthy Oceans, and Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies (http://www.performance.noaa.gov/goals/).

B. Program Priorities

This funding opportunity has two priorities, of equal importance for funding.

Priority 1 awards will support new projects taking place in the Central and Eastern Regions of the United States. These regions include the following states: Colorado, Connecticut, Notice of Federal Funding Page 14 of 51

Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The entirety of a project must only serve audiences located in one or more of the listed states.

Note: The previous funding opportunity for this program covered the other states and territories of the United States.

Priority 2 awards will support the evolution of projects funded under the 2015-2018 funding opportunities from this program (NOAA-SEC-OED-2015-2004408, NOAA-SEC-OED- 2016-2004737, and NOAA-SEC-OED-2018-2005455). The full list of awards that support or supported eligible projects can be found here: https://go.usa.gov/xFWXS. The organizations that received these awards and their formally recognized partners (i.e.

identified by a sub-award, letter of commitment or both) on these projects are eligible to apply to this priority. Project impacts do not need to occur in a specific region or regions of the United States. However, the projects still must be implemented within the United States and its territories.

Priority 2 projects should build off of resources, relationships, and lessons learned from their previous or current project, as well as from other projects in the ELP community resilience education community of practice. These projects should also build on best practices and reflect the rationale articulated in NOAA’s Community Resilience Education Theory of Change found at noaa.gov/elp-resilience-TOC. Insights from the community of practice are discussed by thematic area within the ELP Resilience Education Community of Practice 2021 Workshop Report (https://go.usa.gov/xFhpX).

An applicant may only submit a given project idea to one priority or the other. In the event a project is submitted to both priorities, Office of Education staff will contact the applying institution(s) to ask them which application should be withdrawn.

C. Program Authority

Authority for this program is provided by the following: 33 USC 893a, the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Reauthorization Act of 2010 ("America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010").

II. Award Information

A. Funding Availability

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NOAA anticipates that approximately $5,000,000 may be available in fiscal year (FY) 2022 for this announcement. Approximately 7 to 12 awards among both priorities, in the form of cooperative agreements, will be made in FY 2022. Top ranked applications not funded in the current fiscal year may be considered for funding in FY 2023 without NOAA repeating the competitive process outlined in this announcement. NOAA’s Office of Education plans to continue to focus on building the environmental literacy necessary for community resilience during the next few years of the Environmental Literacy Program.

Please note: There may be additional funding available for projects that implement the proposed Civilian Climate Corps Initiative (Exec Order No. 14008).

All projects in both priorities must be between 2 and 5 years in duration and the total federal amount requested from NOAA for each project must be no less than $250,000 and no more than $500,000 for all years of the project, including direct and indirect costs.

Any project requesting total federal support from NOAA less than $250,000 or more than $500,000 total for all years will not be considered for funding. The amount of funding available through this announcement will be dependent upon final FY 2022 and FY 2023 budgetary decisions. Publication of this notice does not obligate the Department of Commerce (DOC)/NOAA to award any specific project or to obligate any available funds. If an applicant incurs any costs prior to receiving an award agreement from an authorized NOAA Grants Officer, the applicant does so solely at his/her own risk of such costs not being included under the award. Prior approval for pre-award costs made up to, and including, 90 days before the award start date is waived by NOAA. However, grant recipients must seek prior approval for reimbursement for pre-award costs over 90 days before the award start date. The exact amount of funds that may be awarded will be determined in pre-award negotiations between the applicant and NOAA.

Multi-year funding may be considered for programs or long-term awards where funding for the subsequent year(s) is anticipated but not provided at the time the initial award is approved and where the estimated budget for future funding periods can be forecasted with some degree of reliability.

B. Project/Award Period

Pre-applications and full applications for both priorities must cover a project period of two to five years to be eligible for merit review. Start dates can be October 1, 2022 or later.

Applicants selected to receive funding may be asked to modify the project start date.

C. Type of Funding Instrument

Full applications selected for funding will be funded through cooperative agreements, as

Notice of Federal Funding Page 16 of 51 described in 2 C.F.R. 200.24, meaning that NOAA expects to be substantially involved in many aspects of the award. Substantial involvement may include, but is not limited to, liaison activities between the grantee and NOAA personnel who are contributing data or expertise to the project.

III. Eligibility Information

A. Eligible Applicants

For both priorities of this funding opportunity, eligible applicants are limited to institutions of higher education; K-12 public and independent schools and school systems;

other nonprofits, including community-based organizations and informal education institutions, such as museums, zoos, and aquariums; state and local government agencies;

and Indian tribal governments in the United States. For-profit organizations, foreign institutions, and individuals are not eligible to apply; however, for-profit organizations, foreign institutions, and individuals may participate as project partners. Likewise, federal agencies are not eligible to receive federal assistance under this announcement, but may be project partners.

Priority 1 awards will support new projects taking place in the Central and Eastern Regions of the United States. These regions include the following states: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The entirety of a project must only serve audiences located in one or more of the listed states.

Inclusion of a location not in this list of states will result in disqualification of the pre-application and full application to this Priority.

Priority 2 awards will support the evolution of projects funded under the 2015-2018 funding opportunities from this program (NOAA-SEC-OED-2015-2004408, NOAA-SEC-OED- 2016-2004737, and NOAA-SEC-OED-2018-2005455). The full list of awards that support or have supported eligible projects can be found here: https://go.usa.gov/xFWXS. Project impacts do need to occur in a specific region or regions of the United States.

It is strongly encouraged that an individual serve as a PI on only one application submitted to this funding opportunity. Institutions may submit more than one application and individuals may serve as co-PIs or key personnel on more than one application. Federal employees may not serve as PIs or co-PIs on any application, although they may be included as key personnel.

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B. Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement

There is no cost share requirement.

C. Other Criteria that Affect Eligibility

Pre-applications and full applications must be submitted by the due date and time provided in Section IV.D. Late pre-applications and full applications will not be considered for funding. Submission time will be documented by electronic submission to Grants.gov.

IV. Application and Submission Information

A. Address to Request Application Package

Pre-application and full application packages, including required federal forms and instructions, are available through Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov). Grants.gov requires applicants to register with the system prior to submitting any application. This registration process can take several weeks and involves multiple steps. In order to allow sufficient time for this process, applicants should register as soon as they decide they intend to apply, even if they are not yet ready to submit their pre-applications. Grants.gov will not accept submissions if the applicant has not been authorized or if credentials are incorrect.

Authorizations and credential corrections can take several days to establish. Please plan accordingly to avoid problems with the submission process. For further information please visit the SAM web portal (https://sam.gov/content/home) and https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/organization-registration.html.

If any applicant has problems downloading the pre-application or full application forms from Grants.gov, uploading the pre-application or full application into the Grants.gov system, or using the Grants.gov Workspace feature, contact Grants.gov Customer Support at 1-800- 518-4726 or support@grants.gov.

PLEASE NOTE: For a list of software applications that allow you to successfully navigate the Grants.gov pages and complete your submission visit

B. Content and Form of Application

For Priority 1, each applicant must submit a pre-application through Grants.gov for review. Pre-applications are required to prevent the expenditure of effort on full applications that are not likely to be successful. All applicants will receive a response to their pre-

Notice of Federal Funding Page 18 of 51 application via email from NOAA indicating whether or not they are authorized to submit a full application for the project. Only those institutions that receive authorization from NOAA are eligible to submit a full application. Failure of an applicant to submit a pre-application or full application before the deadline will result in the project not being merit reviewed or receiving any additional consideration. See the Office of Education's frequently asked questions websites: https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/faq_priority1 and https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/faq_priority2 for additional guidance during the preparation of applications.

For Priority 2, only full applications are solicited and must be submitted through Grants.gov.

Collaborative applications will not be funded through this announcement; rather projects will be supported through a single award to an institution that may include sub-awards to project partners.

Note: Links to helpful information for applying to this announcement is available at https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/apply.

1) Required Elements for Priority 1 Pre-Applications

A) Format Requirements

The page margin on standard letter-size paper should be one inch (2.5 cm) at the top, bottom, left, and right. All pages should be numbered. The typeface should be standard 11- point size or larger and must be clear and easily legible. All narrative sections of the pre-application should be single spaced and consist of the elements described in Section IV.B.1. Do not submit scanned documents or forms.

B) Content Requirements

Each pre-application must contain the following three elements:

(a) SF-424, Application for Federal Assistance

(b) Title Page. Please use the title page template available at https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/environmental-literacy-grant-templates-and-models. Whether or not the title page template is used, a title page must be submitted and contain ALL of the following elements:

(i) Project’s title;

(ii) Proposed start and end dates;

(iii) Funding amount requested from NOAA;

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(iv) The Priority to which the application is being submitted;

(v) Principal Investigator (PI) and co-PI names, affiliations, email addresses, and telephone numbers. The PI listed on the title page should be affiliated with the institution submitting the pre-application;

(vi) Executive Summary (150 words maximum). The executive summary should be a concise overview of the project’s goal and objectives, the project’s activities, the project’s location and target audiences, the project’s expected output(s) and outcome(s), and the project’s rationale for the work proposed;

(vii) List of project partners (including NOAA partners);

(viii) List of NOAA assets that will be integrated into the project activities to achieve the project’s goal and objectives (https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/resilience-assets); and

(ix) Describe the location(s) of where your project will take place (including all of the states and territories where audiences will be served).

(c) Project Description (4 page limit). This section should expand on the project’s executive summary to describe the project more clearly. There should be a clear, concise, and well- supported statement of the project’s rationale, citing any relevant front-end evaluations or other needs assessments. The rationale should include how the goal of this funding opportunity will be met, as described in section I.A. Describe the project’s goal and objectives, including the geographic location(s), climate hazards, and target audience(s), and specifically, how the project will support diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate justice.

State whether the target audience(s) are members of underserved communities, and how these people or groups may be disproportionately impacted by extreme weather and/or climate change. Describe the project’s activities and the expected output(s) and outcome(s), specifically how the project will increase the target audiences’ knowledge, skills, and confidence to: (1) reason about the ways that human and natural systems interact globally and locally, including the acknowledgement of disproportionately distributed vulnerabilities;

(2) participate in civic processes; and (3) incorporate scientific information, cultural knowledge, and diverse community values when taking action to build resilience to extreme weather and climate change in ways that contribute to community health, social…