Book: A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental              Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind
by Harriet A. Washington

When: November 15 at 7:00 PM ET 

Join with link: meet.google.com/pcu-wjwx-kmh
or by phone: +1 612-361-0505,
then enter the following PIN: 576 707 897#. 

In addition to finding all our Book Club selections and meeting dates for the 2022-2023 academic year on our website, We have over 50 fiction, non-fiction, and young adult selections from past Book Club events - with discussion questions, in our archives. Whether you’re looking to catch up on some knowledge, enjoy a quick fun read, or find a book to use with your students, there’s something for everyone at the NOAA Planet Stewards Book Club!

If you're looking for educational resources or ideas to plug into your academic planning, check out archived issues of The Watch! Our team has reviewed all content for use by formal and informal educators working to increase their own ocean, climate, and environmental awareness as well as their students and audiences.

If you have an item you'd like to share with our education community, email us at: oceanserviceseducation@noaa.gov. Be sure to include:

• Event/Item announcement title
• Date and time if applicable
• One paragraph description
• Clear thumbnail image
• Link for more information

The United States is recognized as a global leader in sustainable seafood for wild-caught and farmed species. Check out National Seafood Month 2022 and savor delicious seafood along the way.

• Podcast: Aquaculture–Policy and Possibilities
• Ensuring a Future for Seafood in a Changing Ocean: Part 1
• Ensuring a Future for Seafood in a Changing Ocean: Part 2
• Chefs and Farmers Partner with NOAA to Tell the Story of Seafood

Marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico are still being impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and other threats. Researchers are  leveraging partnerships and communicating their findings to help each other and the 21 marine mammal species that live in the region. Each study becomes a piece of the increasingly complex puzzle of marine mammal conservation in the Gulf. Read the StoryMap.

With fewer than 50 individuals remaining, the Rice’s whale has the distinction of being one of the world’s rarest whales. Photo courtesy Lance Garrison

You're invited to apply to receive professional development, connections, and resources for using arts-based instructional approaches to incorporate geospatial datasets in your classroom to help students deepen understanding of STEM concepts and build critical thinking and data literacy skills.Teacher partners will be expected to co-develop, iteratively test, and engage in reflection about the arts-based techniques over a 2-year partnership with our team.  Teachers will receive up to $4000 for their participation (June 2023 to June 2024) as well as travel stipends to attend workshops each summer (2023 and 2024).

Find more details and the application HERE.   Deadline for applications is October 15^th, 2022.

https://nurturenaturecenter.org/building-insights-through-observation/

Climate Generation is offering a $750 stipend for three elementary school level educators to create an elementary climate change lesson plan in collaboration with their staff. 

Educators chosen for the resource development team will receive a $750 stipend and the opportunity to establish long-term relationships with a core group of elementary educators excited about climate change education! Learn more and apply!

NASA distributes over 60 petabytes of free and open Earth science data per year to over 4.7 million people. Finding and using that data can be complicated. Join the NASA STEM Engagement & Educator Professional Development Collaborative for a free 60-minute webinar with NASA Earth Science Data Systems Community Coordinator Elizabeth Joyner. Explore resources that help to facilitate the access and use of data for a range of transdisciplinary Earth System Science topics, including wildfires, tropical cyclones, extreme heat, sea level, agriculture, and more. 

Register online to participate.

You're invited to join a discussion about the future of water, how to protect this precious resource and how to avert catastrophic flooding and seawater inundation. The Columbia Climate School Founding Dean will moderate a live, virtual discussion with three of Columbia University’s leading researchers in water security and the risk to global water supplies. Bring your questions to this illuminating session. Learn more.

Extreme heat is often not taken as seriously as other extreme weather, yet it kills more people in the U.S. than any other weather-related disaster. Learn how government and community leaders throughout the country are developing approaches to reduce the risks people face from increasing extreme heat. Brought to you by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The conversation will be webcast on the Climate Conversations: Extreme Heat webpage.  Closed captioning will be provided, questions from the audience will be taken, and a recording will be available for later viewing.

Learn more and register now.

Learn how community organizing is used as a climate change adaptation strategy by communities of color to meet their needs in post-hurricane landscapes. Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, two history-making hurricanes, touched down on the east coast in 2016 and 2018. Through in-depth focus on a case with Black and Indigenous groups, the importance of community organizing will be highlighted to address environmental inequities in marginalized communities, and to find solutions to the problems caused by climate change.

Launch the webinar on Zoom at the scheduled time.

Meet Em and Kevin Barrett, co-founders of The Inspirer, in the kickoff Deep Dive Series webinar of the 2023 Ocean Awareness Contest. Em and Kevin struggled to find hopeful stories in a sea of sensationalized doom and gloom. After thinking, “there must be somebody out there, somewhere, who is doing something constructive,” they co-founded The Inspirer, a site highlighting evidence-based solutions to the problems on the news. Register for the webinar.

Travel virtually to Antarctica with your students through three live sessions from the McMurdo research station in the heart of Antarctica facilitated by researcher Dr. Xinzhao Chu and her graduate students. Students will learn polar science topics including the upper atmosphere, space weather, seasons in Antarctica, and what it's like to live at the McMurdo station. Students will also be able to chat live with scientists at the end of the world. These events are open to the public and will be most interesting for middle school ages and up. Register on the event pages for the link! Co-hosted by CIRES Education & Outreach and Exploring by the Seat of your Pants.

• October 18 - A Day in the Life at McMurdo
• November 8 - Seasons in the Arctic
• November 15 - Introduction too Space Weather with Arunima Prakash

Register for one or all the webinars.

Join Explorer Classroom — live interactive sessions that connect young people with National Geographic Explorers — to hear behind-the-scenes stories and interact with cutting-edge scientists, researchers, and powerful storytellers from around the globe. All events are free, open to the public, and include an interactive guide for students and educators to help everyone get the most out of the experience.

Climate Superstars is an online environmental challenge that gets kids excited about the environment and how they can take an active role in caring for its future. During the challenge, middle school classrooms and after-school programs (Grades 6-8) complete short tasks geared towards environmental literacy and energy efficiency. Classes that complete at least 7 tasks in the month of October will be entered into a drawing to win one of six $5,000 e-vouchers for Samsung products like tablets, laptops, and interactive displays to modernize their classrooms. Register now!

1. "Striving for Sustainability Globally" Video Contest for all ages. 

The American Geosciences Institute invites individuals and teams to submit a brief, original video exploring the many ways people are using the Earth sciences to make decisions that maintain and strengthen the planet’s ability to support thriving life! Learn more here

2. "Sustainability in Action" Photography Contest for all ages.

Sustainable practices promote Earth’s capacity to support life throughout the biosphere, which involves interactions with other Earth systems such as the geosphere, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere. How does geoscience knowledge help support sustainability where you live? With your camera, capture an image of the ways geoscience informs local efforts to build a sustainable world. Learn more about the contest.

3. "Our Sustainable World" Visual Arts Contest for Grades K-5 

A “sustainable” planet is one that supports living things — and that means taking care of all the things that life depends on, including land, water, air, and other living things. What does a sustainable world look like to you? What is necessary to have or change? What is not necessary? Use your artistic ability to produce an original work of art that shows how land, water, air, and living things interact in a sustainable world. Learn more about the contest.

4."Geoscience for Sustainable Development Goals" Essay Contest for Grades 6-9. 

We have all been called upon to help meet 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) articulated by nations around the world. Geoscience - which addresses interactions of the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere - can play a critical role in this. How can Earth sciences help achieve SDGs in areas such as poverty, nutrition, education, equality, ecosystems, climate change, and/or industrial innovation? Learn more about the contest.

NOAA Fisheries, the National Sea Grant Office, and the NOAA Office of Education have partnered on a new aquaculture literacy webpage to enhance public understanding of aquaculture. Aquaculture literacy refers to an individual or a community’s familiarity with aquaculture and related environmental, economic, and social topics. Visit the new page to find teaching tools, articles, and other information about NOAA's aquaculture literacy efforts! 

An oyster farmer heads back to their farm after dropping off fresh oysters at a tour boat on the Damariscotta River in Maine. (LaDon Swann, Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium)

This guide is geared towards students and designed to assist in planning and completing a successful learning expedition. This toolkit, available as a downloadable pdf in English and Spanish, includes a framework for completing place-based projects.

Delaware Sea Grant’s collection of education resources include lesson plans for four activities relating to wind energy, zooplankton, sea breeze research, and ocean heat capacity. The lesson plans include activities for students in grades 3-12 and were created in collaboration with the University of Delaware.

Check out these resources from PBSMedia about two influential Latinx contributors to the National Parks: including a pioneer of efforts to preserve animals in their natural state in the national parks, and one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who worked as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. 

Studies show that spending even short amounts of time outside can reduce anxiety and improve mental health. The North American Association for Environmental Education is challenging classrooms to get outside for five minutes every day to support students'  - and educator's retention and social-emotional wellness. Take the pledge and find inspiration to help you get the most out of your five minutes of outdoor learning.

Presented by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force, and Discovery Channel, X-STEM All Access is a free virtual conference series by the USA Science & Engineering Festival organizers for middle and high schoolers. It is designed to get students excited about STEM.  Each 30-minute episode will feature a STEM role model telling their story through an upbeat Q&A session with a fellow STEM professional. Check out the NGSS and CASEL aligned lesson plans paired with previous X-STEM All Access episodes. Register for upcoming webinars on October 19, November 9, and December 14.

Have you ever asked your students why we have different seasons? Engage your learners with this video where they can watch as the Earth orbits the Sun, rotating like a slightly tilted, spinning top. This rotation is what changes the angle at which sunlight hits the surface of our planet and creates the different seasons.

Project WET Foundation and Ecolab’s Clean and Conserve Education Program include an activity guide for educators containing five water conservation and hygiene lessons. Each activity has its own short, online training freely available to educators.

Women remain underrepresented in most science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at all levels of education and occupations. To address these gaps, the NSF INCLUDES Network issued a research brief, Evidenced-based Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Girls and Women in STEM, that includes evidence-based strategies for attracting and retaining girls and women in STEM.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN! 

Are you an educator, or know one, who’d like to spend 11 months working at a Federal Agency or Congress? The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship is accepting applications for the 2023-2024 year. Teachers will apply their extensive knowledge and classroom experiences to national education program and/or education policy efforts during this Fellowship. There are many sponsoring Federal Agencies, so check out the full list here and see examples of the work of past Fellows. 

The National Science Foundation administers Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST), created by Congress in 1983, on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The awards are the nation’s highest honors for teachers of STEM, including Computer Science. This year's (2022-2023) awards will honor science, technology, engineering, or mathematics teachers working in grades 7-12.

Applications and/or nominations are now open. Recipients of the award receive the following:

• A certificate signed by the President of the United States.
• A paid trip to Washington, D.C., to attend a series of recognition events and professional development opportunities.
• A $10,000 award from the National Science Foundation.
• An opportunity to build lasting partnerships with colleagues across the nation.

Nominations close on January 9, 2023. Applications must be completed by February 6, 2023.