Professional development training prepared these environmental educators to organize and run fishing clinic programs at their sites as part of The East River Ichthyology Alliance Project collaborative fish database collection. Credit: Eric Collins

Contact:

Antoinette Clemetson, NYSG Marine Fisheries Specialist, P: 631-632-8730, E: aoc5@cornell.edu


New York Sea Grant’s administrative capabilities deliver marine conservation education, public awareness, and professional development to coastal communities

Stony Brook, NY, March 8, 2021 - When the Marine & Coastal District (MCD) of New York Board was authorized in 2019 to create a grant funding program in support of conservation, education, and research projects for the district, it needed a model to follow. Funding for the program would come from the MCD’s custom license plate subscription fees.

In 2020, New York Sea Grant (NYSG) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation executed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the Marine & Coastal District of New York Conservation Education and Research Small Grants Program (www.nyseagrant.org/marinesmallgrants). The leadership and guidance that was afforded under this partnership allowed the MCD Board to administer the first cycle of the small grants and to make awards for six projects:

• Brentwood School District ($15,000): MCD funds supported a Let’s Science That podcast series and the school’s No Child Left Inside wetlands restoration project that won a Samsung Solve for Tomorrow national STEM competition prize (an additional $15,000)

• Friends of East River Esplanade ($15,000): an ADA-compliant bait station prototype was developed and deployed in East Harlem, receiving a MASterworks Design for Park Amenities Award

• East River Ichthyological Alliance (ERIA) ($15,000): coordinated The ERIA Project Fish Database collaborative that records the biological parameters for fish species caught in the East River, resulting in a manuscript publication in the Urban Naturalist

• Long Island Traditions ($10,000): First Hand Fishing fishing traditions workshop series for students in the Freeport School District

• Lower East Side Ecology Center ($4,550): Take the Bait public fishing clinic series to teach fishing skills to residents in Lower Manhattan

• Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program ($15,000): Sportfishing Frenzy program to provide marine biology classes for students in underserved communities.

Project Partners:

• Co-funding: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
• Marine & Coastal District of New York Board


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Elmsford and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.