Grants

2023-2024 BLM Greening STEM Grant

Building the capacity of BLM field sites to use components of NEEF’s Greening STEM model to deliver STEM programming.

This year there will be $60,000 available to issue grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 each for projects during the 2023-2024 academic school year.

Through these BLM Greening STEM grants, BLM and NEEF seek to advance mutual STEM education goals by providing program participants with access to authentic STEM experiences that use the environment and the agency’s unique mission—to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations—as a context for engagement.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues to collaborate with NEEF to build the capacity of BLM field sites to use components of NEEF’s Greening STEM model to design and deliver STEM programming. In 2023, $60,000 was awarded to issue grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 each for projects during the 2023-2024 academic school year.

Programming funded by these grants will utilize STEM-focused content, instructional strategies, training approaches, and collaboration and dissemination technologies to assist school educators and staff in implementing and enhancing learning in and outside of the classroom, with a primary focus on BLM-related subject matter. Following project completion, all resources and related content developed under these grants will be made available via NEEF’s Greening STEM Hub. For examples of successful past projects check out NEEF’s collection of project videos and educational resources.

List of Grantees Awarded

School Partners: Poplar School Districts 9 & 9B
Location: Poplar, Montana

The BLM Buffalo Field Office (BFO), the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes Tribal Historic Preservation Office, and Poplar High School will collaborate on the Fort Peck Plant Study. The goal of this project is to get tribal youth into the field and working in partnership with the BFO Range staff to plant species, then returning home to create a plant identification guide that combines Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with the scientific knowledge BLM uses to manage the rangeland habitat. At the end of the school year, the students will give a final presentation to Tribal Council and at least one other presentation for an agricultural or educational organization/conference detailing the STEM and TEK data they gathered and what they learned from the project. The BLM will receive TEK that is appropriate to share outside the Fort Peck Tribes, which will be incorporated into future rangeland health monitoring data collection. A display at the BFO in the public room will be created to educate and inform the public about the project, the use of STEM and TEK in BLM land management, the importance of citizen science, and the ties the Fort Peck Tribes have to the area.

Nonprofit Partner: Resources for Indian Student Education
Location: Alturas, CA

Resources for Indian Student Education (RISE) will continue their Greening STEM project with BLM to expand on Native youth’s interest in riparian restoration. The Greening STEM “Water Protectors” project will be an after-school partnership between RISE, BLM, Modoc High School, and a Pit River Tribe Environmental Protection Officer. Youth teams will monitor BLM-managed and Pit River-held riparian areas for healthy characteristics. The goals of this Native Traditional Ecological Knowledge (NTEK) project are to improve BLM and tribal relations through school and RISE outreach, to advance awareness of balance in the natural world by caring for water, and to partner Native and non-Native youth in traditions around water.

Nonprofit Partner: Applegate Partnership & Watershed Council
Location: Jacksonville, OR

The Grow Youth Program at the Provolt Recreation Site plans to serve three local school groups from three different school districts: Three Rivers School District (Woodland Charter School), Medford School District 549C (The Valley School of Southern Oregon), and Grants Pass School District 7 (Grants Pass High School Terrestrial Ecology). Each school will work directly under BLM and Applegate Partnership & Watershed Council staff to attend one field day per week for the 2023-2024 school year and participate in project-based, service-learning activities at the Provolt Recreation Site. Students will develop a technical report detailing the mitigation strategies implemented for invasive species removal and document all work completed for mock grant reporting purposes, analyze the total amount of invasive species removed and the potential impacts the removal will have on the surrounding ecosystem, and create a guide for Provolt Recreation Site visitors to help them identify invasive species and better understand the restoration efforts taking place.