NYSG Climate Change Curriculum workshop participants learn about local resiliency efforts from Erie County Parks Rangers at Seneca Bluffs Natural Habitat Park along the Buffalo River. Credit: Nate Drag/NYSG
 
Contact: 

Nate Drag, NYSG Great Lakes Literacy Specialist, E: nwd4@cornell.edu, P: (716) 645-3610

NYSG professional development training for teachers is increasing their awareness, knowledge, and capacity to teach on Great Lakes topics, including climate change

Buffalo, NY, March 23, 2023 - Climate change has various impacts across the planet. Focusing globally can make this topic difficult for students to understand on a local level. Teachers and educators in New York’s Great Lakes region want to learn about and visit local and regional examples of climate change impacts and to better understand efforts to address these impacts and create more resilient coastal communities. Once familiar with these impacts and localized efforts, they can more easily integrate climate change concepts into their classrooms and programs.

In August of 2022, New York Sea Grant (NYSG) hosted a two-day workshop in Buffalo to introduce teachers and educators from New York’s Great Lakes region to experts on coastal resilience and climate change, take them on site tours of coastal resilience projects and climate change impacts, and work collaboratively to develop Great Lakes-specific classroom lessons and activities on this topic.

Eighteen workshop participants learned from experts from the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning, Western New York Land Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, and NYSG. They toured coastal resilience projects at Seneca Bluffs Natural Habitat Park along the Buffalo River and Times Beach Nature Preserve along Lake Erie. They discussed how to incorporate new resources into their teaching programs, shared examples of current lessons, and brainstormed new methods of covering climate-related topics. 

In a post-workshop survey, participants indicated they increased their knowledge of the Great Lakes (80%) and of coastal resilience and climate change educational resources (100%). Workshop participants were eligible to receive classroom supplies such as tabletop steam tables to demonstrate shoreline erosion from extreme weather events and tabletop weather tanks to demonstrate seiches on the Great Lakes.

Partners: 

• Center for Great Lakes Literacy 
• Erie County Department of Environment and Planning 
• Western New York Land Conservancy 
• National Wildlife Federation


NYSG 2022 Climate Change Curriculum workshop participants had the first-hand opportunity to see climate change impacts in local habitats. Credit: Nate Drag/NYSG


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 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.