When you apply for B-WET funding, it is important to follow all of the instructions in the Notice of Federal Funding that you are applying to on grants.gov. The funding opportunity contains important information about program priorities, required information, and scoring criteria to help you develop your proposal. B-WET strives for an equitable geographic distribution of funding and therefore encourages applications to reach students in school districts that have not been previously served by the programs. Only school districts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are eligible to apply for Chesapeake B-WET at this time. Check out this map and list, which indicate the districts that are in the Chesapeake watershed, and whether or not they have previously received Chesapeake B-WET funding.
All proposals must support the NOAA Education Strategic Plan and the Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience Outcome of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.
To help you better understand the Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE), you may wish to take advantage of the following resources:
- Educator's Guide to the MWEE
- Environmental Literacy Model (ELM) for MWEE Planning
- MWEE Audit Tool
- MWEE 101 and 201 Online Courses
- MWEE Video Series
- Bay Backpack
NOAA highly encourages the submission of the following forms with your formal application:
The agency also encourages applicants to include a thoughtful approach to project evaluation. B-WET funding may be used to support contracting with an external evaluation firm or grantees may design their own evaluation strategies. B-WET has previously implemented a national evaluation system to monitor program activities and outcomes, complementing project-level evaluation work conducted by grantees. We are currently analyzing existing evaluation data and planning to enhance our evaluation approach based on that analysis. Grantees may be invited to participate in future data collection activities and will be given advance notice about these opportunities so they can be incorporated into project planning and implementation, as appropriate. More information about the importance of evaluation and how to design effective evaluations can be found at:
- MWEE Evaluation Resource for Student Outcomes (PDF, 43 pages)
- California B-WET Education Project Evaluation
- My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant
Chesapeake B-WET awards are cooperative agreements with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. Contact Elise Trelegan with any questions.