[Gomaeen] Fwd: NOAA releases 2012 Ocean Education Partnership Grants funding opportunity

[GOMA Environmental Education Network]

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Subject:	{Disarmed} NOAA releases 2012 Ocean Education Partnership Grants funding opportunity
Date:	Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:15:49 -0400

Dear all,

The funding opportunity described in the message below will be published on Grants.gov by Monday, March 26, 2012.  We wanted to make you aware of it now so that interested parties could begin registering for the informational webinars scheduled for March 28 and 29 (see details below).  Please feel free to share this information with others in your community.

Thanks,
NOAA Office of Education Grants Team

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The NOAA Office of Education (OEd) is issuing a request for applications for projects designed to expand or develop professional development and other capacity-building activities for informal science educators and volunteers.  A successful project will utilize the resources of multiple institutions to enhance the capacity of informal science educators and volunteers to engage visitors and promote public understanding and stewardship of coastal, marine, and/or freshwater environments.   Eligible applicants are collaborative teams that include at least three non-profit U.S. aquariums, of which at least one must be accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).  Collaborative teams should involve applicants from multiple U.S. states and are strongly encouraged to include at least one aquarium that has not previously received a grant from NOAA’s Office of Education. There is special interest in collaborative teams that include aquariums representing a wide range of annual operating budgets, total visitorship numbers, and/or physical sizes.

Proposed projects should be between two and five years in duration and have maximum total combined budget requests of $1,000,000 for all years of the project.  The deadline for applications is midnight EDT on May 7, 2012.

Two informational webinars with the program officers will occur on March 28, 2012 from 3:00 to 5:00 PM EDT and March 29, 2012, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM EDT. By noon EDT on March 27, 2012, interested applicants should register by contacting oed.g...@noaa.gov and include in the Subject line of the email: "Register for Aquarium Professional Development FFO Webinar" and provide the interested party’s name, institution, telephone number, email address and preferred date in the body of the email. You will receive an email response from oed.g...@noaa.gov with the log-in information and date for the webinar.  Whenever possible, individuals from the same institution should try to join the webinar from the same computer/phone line.

For more information about the Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO), please visit MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.grants.gov." claiming to be www.grants.gov and search under CFDA number 11.008.  Please note that the funding opportunity will be posted on Grants.gov by Monday, March 26.  You can also visit our website for updates:  http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/grants/elg.html