Concurrent with the University of Montana’s announcement of acceptance of a $450,000 project grant award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Bitterroot Climate Action Group (BCAG) announced that it is a community partner with the University on the project. The main goal of the project is to bring education and local input to building resilience and mitigation for the environmental changes brought by climate change.
The grant award entitled “ResilienceMT: Montana Rural and Tribal Community Climate Resilience Exhibit and Forums” provides funding over three years to engage high school students, their teachers, families and other community members through a mobile, interactive educational exhibit, created by spectrUM Discovery Area, the University’ hands-on science center located in the Missoula Public Library. ResilienceMT also will conduct community forums to support Montana’s climate resilience planning, networking and resource-sharing in the Bitterroot Valley and on the Blackfeet and Fort Belknap reservations.
The climate science exhibits will include interactive computer models offering learning experiences with climate data, and mitigation technology exhibits. “We’re excited to collaborate with teachers to develop activities ranging from exploring community climate impacts and responses using digital story maps, to building model fire-ready houses, to experimenting with DIY air filters to improve indoor air quality during smoke season,” said spectrUM’s Beth Covitt.
BCAG Chair Peter Reynolds said that BCAG volunteers and the University of Montana personnel will collaboratively plan community forums to encourage dialog about climate among residents of all ages and walks of life. The outcome of the forums will contribute to a climate action planning for Ravalli County.
Reynolds added, “We are very excited to be included in this project to build climate resilience in our community. This grant furthers BCAG’s goals in every way, and we hope the process of implementing this project will build an understanding among our citizens of all ages and political persuasions of what is at stake and concrete steps to meet the challenges of climate change in our region. Average temperatures across Montana have already risen 2.0-3.0°F between 1950 and 2015. This change alone has tremendous implications for our watersheds, risk of wildfire, and our economic base.”
Bitterroot Climate Action Group is a local nonprofit formed in 2019 to educate the public on climate science, advocate for policy changes and mitigate the local effects of climate change. The group’s 130 members are all residents of Ravalli County. The group’s website is https://bitterrootcag.org. In 2021 BCAG projects included raising funds to provide portable air purifiers to senior residents at Burnt Fork Manor in Stevensville and presenting a series of on-line webinars on climate science.
For further information contact: Peter Reynolds, Chair, Bitterroot Climate Action Group, 406 381-4829 peterreyn@gmail.com.