2025 Pacific Northwest Bay Watershed Education and Training | NOAA NOS ONMS 2025 29638

Opportunity Information: Apply for NOAA NOS ONMS 2025 29638

The 2025 Pacific Northwest Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) opportunity is a competitive NOAA grant program focused on strengthening hands-on environmental education for K-12 students through locally relevant, real-world watershed learning. The central idea is to fund projects that deliver Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs), which are structured, authentic learning experiences that connect classroom instruction to outdoor or field-based investigation and stewardship tied to watersheds, oceans, and estuaries. Alongside student experiences, funded projects are also expected to provide strong professional development for teachers so the learning is high-quality, standards-aligned, and sustainable beyond a single field trip or one-time event. The broader purpose aligns with NOAA's vision of healthy ecosystems by helping communities and schools build understanding and readiness around environmental change, especially in coastal and watershed settings.

For FY25, the solicitation highlights two main priority areas. The first priority emphasizes systemic, classroom-integrated MWEEs for K-12 students that promote climate resilience and include high-quality teacher professional development connected directly to those MWEEs. In practice, this points toward programs that are embedded into curriculum and instruction (not just extracurricular activities), are repeatable across classrooms or grade levels, and build teacher capacity to deliver watershed education over time. The second priority supports MWEEs that appropriately involve Indigenous Knowledge and promote climate resilience. This priority is aimed at projects that engage Tribal perspectives respectfully and accurately, support culturally grounded learning where appropriate, and connect students to climate resilience concepts through both scientific and Indigenous ways of knowing, ideally through collaboration with Tribal governments and Indigenous partners.

Geographically, the program is specifically for education projects serving the Pacific Northwest region, defined for this announcement as Oregon and Washington. An organization can be located anywhere in the United States, but the teachers and/or students who are the primary participants must be in Oregon and/or Washington. This structure allows national organizations or institutions to apply if they are clearly delivering programming in those two states. The funding is administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA, under a discretionary grant mechanism, and the work falls under environment, natural resources, science and technology, and related research and development categories.

Eligibility is broad across the education and community landscape. Eligible applicants include K-12 public and independent schools and school systems, institutions of higher education, community-based organizations and nonprofits, regional/state/local government agencies, interstate agencies, and Indian Tribal governments. Individuals cannot apply. Federal agencies cannot receive funds under this opportunity, but they may participate as collaborative partners and can contribute in-kind services. For-profit entities and foreign organizations (including foreign public entities) are not eligible to apply as the lead applicant, though they can be included as project partners under an eligible lead organization.

A key administrative requirement is that applicant organizations must have active registrations in three separate systems before submitting an application: SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and eRA Commons. These registrations must be completed and maintained, and NOAA strongly cautions that the combined process can take 4 to 6 weeks, so applicants are expected to start early. The organization typically needs a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) through SAM.gov before finishing certain steps, and eRA Commons requires the organization to set up at least one Signing Official (SO) and at least one Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) account in order to submit. Applicants without reliable internet access are directed to contact the agency contacts listed in the full announcement for alternative submission instructions, and NOAA recommends reviewing Commerce Department applicant and grantee training modules to reduce submission errors.

In terms of funding scale and timing, the opportunity is listed under Funding Opportunity Number NOAA NOS ONMS 2025 29638 and CFDA 11.429. The application closing date is March 7, 2025. The maximum award amount (award ceiling) is $150,000, and NOAA expects to make about 15 awards. Overall, strong applications will clearly show how their project delivers high-quality MWEEs to Oregon and/or Washington students, builds lasting teacher capacity through professional development, and addresses climate resilience, with an additional emphasis for proposals that meaningfully and appropriately incorporate Indigenous Knowledge through respectful partnership and sound educational practice.

• The DOC NOAA - ERA Production in the environment, natural resources, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "2025 Pacific Northwest Bay Watershed Education and Training" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 11.429.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-12-30.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-03-07. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $150,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 15 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for NOAA NOS ONMS 2025 29638

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