NOAA New England Bay Watershed Education and Training (New England B-WET) Program

NOAA's Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) program funds locally relevant, authentic experiential learning for K-12 audiences through Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs). MWEEs are multi‐stage activities that include learning both outdoors and in the classroom and aim to increase understanding and stewardship of watersheds and related ocean, coastal, riverine, estuarine, and Great Lakes ecosystems.

New England B-WET focuses on the priorities and challenges facing New England watersheds by helping students and teachers apply scientific methods and tools to understand and appreciate their local watershed system. The New England region includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. B-WET encourages students to become more interested in science, technology, engineering, and math. By focusing on watersheds where they live and by participating in personally relevant stewardship projects, students and teachers can become knowledgeable stewards of their local environment.

2021 Priorities

Priority 1. Backyard B-WET in a Pandemic  

During the pandemic, with masks and social distancing required and so much being experimental and innovative, Backyard B-WET may be reconfigured virtually, or realized individually with appropriate, small-scale facilitation and mentoring by educators. Restoration projects on school grounds, on land adjacent to schools, in the backyard or in the kitchen, or through walking field trips can still support the four essential elements of the MWEE, whether by Teacher MWEE Professional Development Training or in the Student MWEE itself or both. Successful Priority 1 projects may implement environmentally sustainable practices to improve the health of the school’s watershed, assure teacher confidence integrating the program into the classroom curriculum, offer authentic investigation and stewardship experiences for students in their own backyard or even in their home, or reduce energy and maintenance costs for schools (internal as well as external climate mitigation). 

Priority 2. Second Glance: Capacity-Building for Sustainability

Priority 2 is available only to previous (prior to FY2017) New England B-WET grantees.

Historically, New England B-WET has asked for new innovative projects, not repeat performances. The disruptions to outdoor environmental education caused by the pandemic suggest that now is an appropriate time to assess what we have done in the past to address STEM requirements using the MWEE methodology, to see how B-WET projects have stood the test of time in a rapidly changing world, particularly within the context of a deepening pandemic. 

Priority 2’s capacity-building focus has two key dimensions:  (1) expanding the institutional partnership capabilities of the community, while supporting STEM, placed-based outdoor environmental education for K-12 and (2) supporting and improving upon prior B-WET investment. We are interested in identifying key differences in what worked in the earlier, pre-pandemic world of outdoor environmental education and what supports Teacher MWEE Professional Development Training, the Student MWEE, and participation of underserved populations and community-based partnerships, today.

See the list of 2019 B-WET grant awardees