Ripple Effect Water Literacy Project

New Orleans sits at the intersection of some of the most urgent environmental challenges in the world: rising seas, intensifying storms, a disappearing coast. And yet, for most students in our public schools, science class doesn't reflect that reality. National curriculum wasn't written for a delta city built below sea level. As a result, New Orleans kids graduate without ever studying the water systems that shape their lives.

Ripple Effect is changing that from the inside out.

We partner directly with New Orleans public schools to build the kind of science education our city's students deserve: rigorous, locally grounded, and rooted in the places and water systems students already know. We don't run an after-school program or one-off field trips. We work within the school day, embedded in schools and classrooms, developing original, standards-aligned curriculum and training teachers so that students can investigate real environmental phenomena — stormwater flooding in their own schoolyards, the Gulf dead zone, hurricanes — as part of their regular science coursework.

What this looks like for students:

A 3rd grader at a KIPP New Orleans elementary school steps outside with a clipboard and a data sheet. She's not on a field trip; she's in science class. She and her classmates are measuring how quickly water absorbs into the soil in different parts of their schoolyard, building a model of why some parts of the city flood worse than others. By the end of the unit, her understanding of urban flooding will have improved by 60%. Just as importantly, she'll think of herself as a scientist. — something only half her class believed at the start.

A 9th grader at Collegiate Academies studies stormwater, then the Gulf dead zone, then hurricanes, spending a full semester with Ripple Effect's Ripples to Waves curriculum, developed alongside the same team behind some of the most respected science materials in the country. Students regularly describe moments of genuine surprise: "I was surprised that farming affects the Gulf that much to form a whole hypoxic zone." Another student, after studying how New Orleans was built and why it floods, put it plainly: "Now I know that flooding is inevitable. People settled here knowing this is what happens. So now it's like — we gotta face it." Moments like this are typical in Ripple Effect classrooms. In our most recent unit, 65% of high school students said they were "very excited" to come to science class every day.

Our reach so far:

Since 2021, Ripple Effect has supported more than 15,000 student participants across 10 New Orleans schools, delivering over 500,000 hours of science instruction. Students who complete our programs show dramatic gains in scientific understanding — and in how they see themselves. By the end of our summer elementary program, 90% of students identified as scientists, up from 50% at the start. Belief in collective problem solving also increased, from 70% of students at the beginning of the program to 100% by the end.

This is what's possible when science class reflects the world students actually live in.

"There's a lot more permeable things in the natural environment than the urban environment, cuz you see there's a lot of trees. So puddles won't form up and up to make a flood." — Ripple Effect elementary student, after a schoolyard investigation

"[This picture of a scientist reminds me of science class] because we get to experiment on real life things when we go out into the field and do stuff with our clipboard. And we write down important knowledge, so we can process all the knowledge that we get from the outside world." — Ripple Effect elementary student

"Now I know that flooding is inevitable. People settled here knowing this is what happens. So now it's like — we gotta face it." — Ripple Effect 9th grade student

The teachers who work with us describe something similar: a shift in what they believe is possible.

"Puddles to Floods ignited my 'why' of teaching science. This experience showed me that there are teachers out here who are doing this. I just didn't have the resources to learn and execute it myself." — Summer Institute teacher

Your gift to Ripple Effect on GiveNOLA Day supports:

• Original, New Orleans-specific curriculum that is updated and refined every year based on what we learn

• Hands-on, field-based learning built into the regular school day — not as an add-on, but as the heart of instruction

• Deep teacher training and coaching that makes all of this sustainable year after year

• The long-term school partnerships that allow us to track, prove, and continually improve our impact