NYSG Great Lakes Literacy Specialist Nate Drag demonstrates a classroom activity during a Great Lakes Education Council meeting. Credit: Emily Fell/NYSDEC
Contact:
Nate Drag, NYSG Great Lakes Coastal Literacy Specialist, E: nwd4@cornell.edu, P: (716) 270-2408
NYSG and NYS DEC partnered with Great Lakes teachers to develop and design professional development workshops on an environmental topic important to students
Buffalo, NY, May 27, 2025 - Teachers who would like to teach about the Great Lakes often lack the technical knowledge and resources required to do so. Professional development opportunities do not always spotlight topics that teachers can easily incorporate and are of interest to students. Giving teachers an active voice in the planning of a professional development opportunity offers workshop facilitators invaluable insight into topics of interest and creates stronger buy-in from future workshop participants.
New York Sea Grant (NYSG) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation held four meetings from August 2023 to May 2024 to engage a council of teachers from NY’s Great Lakes region. The council identified climate change in the Great Lakes as a topic important to them as educators and to their students, and advised that a workshop should highlight solutions to the challenges posed by climate change. These recommendations led to development of workshops with a focus on impacts and adaptations on New York’s Great Lakes shorelines, and guest speakers from the National Weather Service, New York State Water Resources Institute (landscape architect), University at Buffalo (Indigenous Studies faculty), and NYSG (coastal processes and hazards).
Twenty-nine participants at two climate change workshops in August of 2024 learned from topical experts, participated in walking tours at New York State Parks that highlighted different shoreline features and their functions, and worked collaboratively to build resilient shoreline models and then test their design against simulated waves and fluctuating water levels. In post-workshop surveys, 96% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that their knowledge of climate change in the Great Lakes increased; 100% agreed or strongly agreed that the workshop was a successful professional development opportunity.
The development of a Great Lakes Education Council was a successful pilot project that demonstrates the value of teacher-driven professional development workshop planning that leads to increases in knowledge and confidence in teaching students about climate change impacts and adaptations on New York’s Great Lakes shorelines.
More Info: New York Sea Grant
Established in 1966, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Sea Grant College Program promotes the informed stewardship of coastal resources in 34 joint federal/state university-based programs in every U.S. coastal state (marine and Great Lakes) and Puerto Rico. The Sea Grant model has also inspired similar projects in the Pacific region, Korea and Indonesia.
Since 1971, New York Sea Grant (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.
NYSG historically leverages on average a 3 to 6-fold return on each invested federal dollar, annually. We benefit from this, as these resources are invested in Sea Grant staff and their work in communities right here in New York.
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.
New York Sea Grant, one of the largest of the state Sea Grant programs, is a cooperative program of the State University of New York (SUNY) and Cornell University. The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.
For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org, follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and YouTube). NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which it publishes 2-3 times a year.