What are the hazards in our area and how do we become more resilient for the future? Nurture Nature Center has just been awarded a new grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Office of Education, designed to help the community learn more about its natural hazards and strategies for resilience. The project, CREATE Resilience: Community Resilience through Education, Art, Technology and Engagement, will support a four-year education project that will work with teens and adults in Easton, Wilson and Bangor to help develop knowledge and a community vision for resilience.
The grant funding is part of NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Grant program. NNC, which will receive $429,420 over four years, is one of nine recipients nationally. Partners on the grant include various NOAA and National Weather Service offices, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, Northampton County Emergency Management Agency, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, Easton and Wilson Area School Districts, Lafayette College, and Lehigh Valley Community Foundation. The project will use data and resources from the bi-county Hazard Mitigation Plan as well as NOAA data assets to help explain the science of local hazards, as well as strategies for resilience. The project will engage teens working as CREATE Youth Ambassadors to help build an artist representation of a community vision of resilience (more about the CREATE Youth Ambassadors here). The project will also include a new Science on a Sphere video about building community resilience, and will create guidebooks for area residents to live safely with hazards, as well as guidebooks for other institutions interested in replicating the project in their own communities. Keep posted for future events and opportunities to participate.
Media release from Congressman Cartwright available at: https://cartwright.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/cartwright-announces-429420-noaa-grant-for-nurture-nature-center
Media release from NOAA Office of Education available at: https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/elp/grants/apply/2018-environmental-literacy-grants