Marin Students to Study Sea-Level Rise in Science Project Funded Through Special Grant

As many as 200 Marin County teenagers will get to work on a climate change project after the county recently secured an educational grant, county officials said.

The $28,900 Whale Tail grant will pay for the county’s Youth Exploring Sea-Level Rise Science project that begins in April.

Teenagers will be able to create and share a science curriculum on climate change, sea-level rise, mapping and data collection, county officials said. The project is meant to serve as a model for other Bay Area communities seeking to address concerns about rising seas.

Here’s the full news release from the County of Marin:

Upwards of 200 teens in Marin County will get to participate in an eye-opening project on climate change now that the County’s Community Development Agency (CDA) has secured an educational grant.

On Feb. 11, the California Coastal Commission (CCC) approved a Whale Tail grant worth $28,900 to fund the County’s collaborative Youth Exploring Sea-Level Rise Science project that’s planned to launch in April.

The grant, one of 22 approved out of 114 applications statewide, will allow local students to create and disseminate a curriculum on climate science, sea-level rise, mapping and hands-on data collection. The project will serve a model for Bay Area communities and all other areas addressing the concerns ofsea-level rise.

Students at Redwood and Tamalpais high schools recently piloted the project with CDA staff. At Redwood, students photographed the effects of king tides not far from the Larkspur campus.

County planners, led by Planning Manager Jack Liebster, have worked to educate the public about the importance of king tides, the highest tides of theyear that give a preview of possible average water levels in the future.

“It is particularly important for us to engage young people in this work,” Liebster said, “because they, their children and their children’s children unfortunately will inherit the growing problem of sea-level rise.”

Youth Exploring Sea Level Rise Science is a partnership between local high schools, Marin County CDA, the California King Tides Project, Coravai LLC andShore Up Marin. Under the plan, the King Tides Project would create a curriculum on climate science, sea-level rise, mapping and datacollection. Student participants from ethnically and economically diverse high schools in low-lying areas would document where shorelines are inundatedby king tides now, foretelling more frequent future flooding.

All data and observations would be collected and shared, used to verify projections from a coastal sea-level rise mapping tool and help planners visualize and communicate the risks of local flooding in the future. In a second phase, students would develop a toolkit to be shared and used by otherschools so that more young people become real-life partners in helping their own communities adapt to sea-level rise.

Liebster was the founder of the CCC’s Coastal Cleanup Day and Adopt a Beach program and the concept designer of the original Whale Tail license platethat raises funds to protect and restore the priceless resources of California’s coast and ocean.

The total project budget is $48,500. An estimated 150-200 students and about 25 researchers and planners will participate between April 2015 and June 2016.

To learn more about the County’s work on sea-level rise, check www.marinslr.org.