About the Collaboration

The Tri-Agency Climate Education (TrACE) Collaboration supports sustained and robust education and communication initiatives to develop a climate-literate citizenry and skilled workforce. The effort needed for comprehensive climate change education is far greater than any one institution, education sector, or even federal agency can handle. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have collaborated since 2009 to coordinate over $110 M of their investments in roughly 125 climate change education projects.

In the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) report, America's Climate Choices, the authors find that "climate change is difficult to communicate by its very nature." However, "education and communication are among the most powerful tools the nation has to bring hidden hazards to public attention, understanding, and action" (NRC 2011). Climate change communication and education face many challenges, and federal, state, and local agencies, non-governmental organizations, professional societies, and individuals have invested in numerous initiatives to support learning.

Results of these investments include:

• An expanding research base on best practices in climate change education and communication;
• An active learning community focused on developing, implementing, and evaluating climate change education activities and programs;
• Infrastructure supporting networks of scientists, educators and others from academia, government, aquariums, museums and zoos, who are involved in improving climate literacy among a diverse range of audiences; and
• Numerous activities and products for use in climate change education and communication (including those in this Tri-Agency Climate Change Education Catalog)

About the Catalog

The Tri-Agency Climate Education (TrACE) Catalog is an online repository of climate education resources developed through initiatives funded by NASA, NOAA and NSF. The catalog provides search and browse access to these educational resources. Projects represented in the catalog have been funded at various institutions through award initiatives including NASA ESTEEM (Earth Systems, Technology and Energy Education for MUREP - Minority University Research & Education Program; previously NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) and NASA Global Climate Change Education (GCCE)), NOAA's Environmental Literacy Program, and NSF's Climate Change Education Partnerships (CCEP Phase I and II). These entities have supported sustained and robust educational and communication initiatives to develop a wide variety of products for use in climate change education and communication.

Primarily, the TrACE Catalog provides support to climate change education project Principal Investigators and staff to share their work with this community, and to connect with other projects and people who are working on similar efforts. The catalog can also be used directly by the target audiences of climate education initiatives, including K-12 school audiences. Wherever possible, the catalog therefore includes direct links to finalized educational products and resources.

The ultimate goal of the catalog, and the tri-agency collaboration, is to strengthen the climate education community's ability to leverage prior funding and results.

The TrACE Catalog is unique in that it:

• Provides a comprehensive overview of climate education tools produced through support from federal funding; and
• Contains information about the institution that completed the work as well as the product(s) that resulted from the work.

The TrACE Catalog was created by NASA, NOAA and NSF as part of their Tri-Agency Climate Education Collaboration.