Rodgers Family Foundation Supports Lloyd Center’s Climate Science Learning Project with $10,000 Grant

The Lloyd Center has received yet another grant supporting our popular, ever-growing Climate Science Learning Project (CSLP)!

We are happy to announce that the Rodgers Family Foundation has generously given the Center a $10,000 grant in support in support of our CSLP. Launched in 2011, this unique undertaking teaches science and mathematics by incorporating these fields into a hands-on outdoor environmental education program. Aligned with the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks in science and engineering, the CSLP focuses on the projected effects of climate change on local biodiversity, introducing age-appropriate math, writing, critical thinking and life skills into core climate science lessons.

As part of the CSLP, fifth-grade students from Fall River and New Bedford are assisting the Lloyd Center in the documentation of potential impacts of climate change on local wildlife, working side-by-side with Lloyd Center research scientists. The students are also helping to create a web-based climate science education tool with the data they collect as participants in the project. A key objective of this work is to involve the students in activities that inspire a passion for science, while facilitating discovery of the significant relationship between human communities and natural systems.

“We are grateful to the Rodgers Family Foundation for their support. Thanks to growing foundation support, we will be able to fully implement the climate science curricula developed and tested system-wide during the 2011-2012 school year, in local public schools.” stated Lloyd Center Executive Director Rachel Stronach, “Standardization of the curricula and full implementation in the coming year will again provide up to 4,750 southeastern New England elementary and high-school-aged students with the opportunity to work with professional scientists to collect data essential to discovering and documenting the impact of climate change on local wildlife. This work will also create a replicable model for teaching climate science in school systems throughout the region.”