Project Director: Ayesha Gray

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

Funding Cycles: Capacity Building 2

Description: The Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Mississippi is home to several unique ecosystems that experience ongoing challenges from natural and human-caused disruptions. Maintaining and restoring the health of these ecosystems requires the constant application of management, monitoring, and restoration efforts. This project plans to use these unique habitats and the current management, monitoring, and restoration practices employed on them as a platform to educate students about ecological processes and ecosystem function. To advance their scientific and environmental literacy, local 9th-12th grade students from the surrounding area will be provided with a series of immersive educational experiences in the estuary and pine savanna involving critical thinking exercises and hands-on engagement with the work being done by natural resources managers at the reserve.