Project Director: Lacey Huffling

Funding Organization: National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine: Gulf Research Program

Funding Cycles: Capacity Building 2

Description: While local watersheds and the larger water bodies they ultimately flow into can seem geographically distant and disconnected from one another, activities occurring in the local watersheds and the overall ecosystem health of these watersheds have significant downstream impacts on the ecological health of the larger water bodies. This is particularly true of the Gulf of Mexico, which receives water from rivers draining from 31 states. This project aims to increase 6th-12th grade students’ understanding of these causal relationships and is focused around the Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia and its impact on the Gulf of Mexico. The project will train and provide ongoing support for teachers to integrate local ecosystem monitoring—through Adopt-A-Stream and other citizen science projects—with problem-based learning and fieldwork to provide first-hand demonstrations for students of the connection between their local watershed and the Gulf of Mexico. Community demographics in the region will also result in increased participation of underrepresented and underserved populations in citizen science.