Tinian Elementary School students participating in the school’s Ocean Guardian project pose for a photo with project lead teacher Carmen Farrell, standing, back row, left, and school principal Lou Connie Manglona, standing, back row, right.
(NOAA) — In 2009, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries established the NOAA Ocean Guardian School program for K-12 public, private, and charter schools.
A NOAA Ocean Guardian School makes a commitment to the protection and conservation of its local watersheds, the world’s ocean, and special ocean areas like national marine sanctuaries. Schools receive small grants to carry out proposed school- or community-based watershed/ocean stewardship projects. At the end of the school year, participating schools must fulfill specific program requirements in order to be recognized by NOAA as an Ocean Guardian School.
The NOAA Ocean Guardian School program was first implemented in California. It has since expanded to other regions around the country with over 150 schools having engaged their students in hands-on watershed and ocean stewardship activities that include campaigns to reduce single-use plastic and plastic pollution, recycling and composting programs, watershed restoration activities, efforts to reduce fossil-fuel based energy-use, and implementation of ocean friendly school gardens and habitats.
For the school year 2023-2024, 72 K-12 schools across the nation were selected to participate in the NOAA Ocean Guardian School program, including two schools from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. This is the first NOAA Ocean Guardian partnership with schools from the CNMI.
Tinian Elementary School will receive a $4,000 Ocean Guardians grant to support the construction of a garden on their school campus that will create additional animal habitat and bolster the population of vital pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, as well as reduce flooding, erosion, and sedimentation to nearby waterways. A group of 10 students will participate in this project, headed by project lead teacher Mrs. Carmen Farrell with support from Principal Lou Connie Manglona.
Manglona expressed her enthusiasm for the program, sharing that “[t]he grant we have secured will be instrumental in launching our school garden project, a vital initiative designed to educate our students, staff, and community about the essential role we all play in safeguarding our previous watershed and coastlines.”
Through a partnership with the Micronesia Conservation Trust, the Tinian Junior-Senior High School will receive a $4,000 matching grant to support their Ocean Guardian project of combating marine debris on the island. Project participation will come from the school’s newly formed Ocean Guardian Club, where students will help remove marine debris from the island’s shorelines and near-shore coral reefs and promote better solid waste management for cleaner beaches. TJSHS’s Ocean Guardian Club and project is headed by project lead teacher Dr. Daniel Chase with support from Principal Lizabeth Perzinski.
NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary program seeks to increase the public awareness of America’s marine resources and maritime heritage by conducting scientific research, monitoring, exploration, and educational programs. Today, the sanctuary program manages 15 national marine sanctuaries and two marine national monuments that together encompass more than 600,000 square miles of America’s ocean and Great Lakes natural and cultural resources.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
If you would like to support TES and join their efforts in establishing their school garden, please reach out to Principal Lou Connie Manglona at louconnie.manglona@cnmipss.org or Carmen Farrell at carmen.farrell@cnmipss.org/.
For more information about the NOAA Ocean Guardian School program in the CNMI, contact Janice Castro (janice.castro@noaa.gov), CNMI regional coordinator.
Also on the web:
http://www.noaa.gov
http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov
http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/education/ocean_guardian/welcome.html
