One of 2019’s Mentor Teachers, Hildur Palsdottir (far right), doing a plot activity with workshop attendees to study microplastics at the beach in Sands Point, NY. The workshop was lead by Palsdottir and fellow Mentor Teacher Leah Master (not pictured), who gave hands-on lessons on coastal erosion. Credit: Jimena Beatriz Perez-Viscasillas/LISS

NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Long Island Sound Mentor Teacher (LISMT) program has been canceled. Applicants from the 2020 round will be allowed revisions to their current submissions next year and will be evaluated for the 2021 LISMT program.

In lieu of the 2020 LISMT workshops, the Long Island Sound Study will be sharing other online resources and hosting webinars around different Long Island Sound topics. If you are interested in leading a webinar or want to be included in our educator mailing list to find out about upcoming opportunities, reach out to Jimena at jbp255@cornell.edu.


Stony Brook, NY, March 17, 2020 - Applications are now being accepted for the 2020 Long Island Sound Mentor Teacher (LISMT) Program through April 28, 2020.

Every year, two pairs of educators are selected by New York Sea Grant (NYSG) and the Long Island Sound Study (LISS) through the LISMT Program to work together to develop, plan, and lead a professional development workshop for other teachers, sharing interdisciplinary, hands-on activities and lessons about the Long Island Sound that can be easily implemented into existing curriculums. 

NYSG will offer guidance and funding support to the selected Mentor Teachers, who will receive a $1,200 stipend and have access to a programming budget and Long Island Sound resources for their workshop. Pairs of teachers from each of the following grade level subsets are encouraged to apply: K-8 and 9-12.

Please see the Call for Applications attached for more detailed information about the program and the 2020 application process. You can also find this information in LISS's Mentor Teacher Program webpage.

Educators from all across the Long Island Sound watershed in New York, including Queens, are welcome to apply. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jimena Beatriz Perez-Viscasillas, NYSG's LISS Outreach Coordinator, at jbp255@cornell.edu or 631-632-8730.


Two of the 2019 Mentor Teachers, Amy Olander (left) and Veronica Morabito-Weeks, who conducted a workshop centered around runoff and nitrogen pollution. The pair illustrated how to use oyster tanks to demonstrate water filtering in the classroom. Credit: Jimena Beatriz Perez-Viscasillas/LISS


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, 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. Our program also produces an occasional e-newsletter,"NOAA Sea Grant's Social Media Review," via its blog, www.nyseagrant.org/blog.