NOAA Gulf of Mexico Bay Watershed Education and Training (Gulf B-WET) Program

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Watch a short Gulf B-WET highlight video.

The Gulf B-WET program is an environmental education program that promotes place-based experiential learning for K–12 students and related professional development for teachers in the five Gulf states. Projects supported by this funding opportunity will develop and promote Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs). The MWEE is a learner-centered framework that focuses on investigations into local environmental issues, leads to informed action, and increases environmental literacy. MWEEs are composed of multiple components that include learning both outdoors and in the classroom, and are designed to increase the environmental literacy of all participants by actively engaging students in building knowledge and meaning through hands-on experiences.

Gulf B-WET projects support the priority issues of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, with the goal of significantly increasing regional collaboration to enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf B-WET Program is one of seven B-WET regional programs across the country including California, Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico, Hawai'i, New England, Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest. These seven programs make up the National NOAA B-WET Program.

FY24 Gulf B-WET Funding Opportunity

The FY24 Gulf of Mexico funding opportunity will likely publish in the late fall of 2023. Gulf B-WET funding typically supports student investigation of environmental topics and issues, both locally and globally, that are of interest to them. Students identify actions to address these issues and understand the value of those actions, enabling them to help to protect and restore watersheds and related ocean and coastal ecosystems. Gulf B-WET funding also supports, high quality professional development for teachers allowing them to gain confidence in the value of MWEEs and strategies for conducting MWEEs with students. Gulf B-WET also supports implementation of systemic MWEEs which reach the entire student population in one or more grades within a school district. Again this year, Gulf B-WET will support capacity building for expanded statewide K-12 environmental literacy initiatives. Such project will advance environmental literacy strategies and lay the foundation for sustainable and equitable environmental literacy, including MWEEs, at the state or multi-state level.