3/29/13

Nature Up North Program Receives Grant from Thoreau Foundation

CANTON -St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of Biology Erika Barthelmess and Erin Siracusa, Class of 2012, have received an $18,644 grant from the Henry David Thoreau Foundation to support the Nature Up North program.

Nature Up North is a new academic and community outreach program focused on training undergraduates to be environmental educators.

“Led by a diverse campus group in partnership with numerous local nonprofit organizations, Nature Up North will help students make the transition from student to teacher, as they help plan, design and deliver outreach programming that explores local ecosystems, species at-risk due to climate change, the impacts of human activities on the environment, and how to collect and analyze local scientific data,” the grant proposal says. “Students will also play a key role in generating content for and maintaining a project website that will serve as a ‘virtual nature center’ for northern New York.” 

Barthelmess and Siracusa, who is the Nature Up North project manager, will work with key community partners, such as the Robert Moses State Park Nature Center, the Ogdensburg Boys & Girls Club, and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe Environment Division, to offer St. Lawrence River-focused environmental and outreach activities to local school children, their families and other members of the North Country region.

These activities will be supplemented and promoted through the "virtual nature center" Barthelmess and her colleagues propose to create as a hub for ecological data, information sharing and environmental outreach.

The Thoreau Foundation grant is part of the the organization’s Faculty Grant Program, which provides grants to undergraduate professors conducting student-based research and field studies that develop problem-solving skills and help students become catalysts of change. The grants support creative approaches to environmental work at local and global scales that have lasting, positive impact. The foundation encourages cooperative efforts with community organizations and businesses that can further cultivate future environmental leaders.

It is the second grant the program has received in a month. In early March, Barthelmess and Siracusa received $20,000 for the project from the St. Lawrence River Research and Education Board.