Ripple Effect Water Literacy Project

This GiveNOLA, every dollar you give goes directly to one thing: Ripples to Waves, Ripple Effect's signature high school science program — built by New Orleans educators, researchers, scientists, and community members who have spent years creating the education this city's students deserve. 

What is Ripples to Waves?
Ripples to Waves is a full high school environmental science course built specifically for New Orleans students. 

In this course, students investigate major environmental challenges shaping their city and their future:

• Urban Flooding (Unit 1) — Build physical models of New Orleans' pump system. Watch it fail. Debate real solutions.
• The Gulf Dead Zone (Unit 2) — Trace how fertilizer from Midwestern farms creates a oxygen-starved dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi.
• Hurricanes (Unit 3) — Explore how storms form, intensify, and devastate, and what communities can do about it.

Why is Ripples to Waves needed?
Until recently, high school science teachers in Louisiana had no full, standards-aligned course for teaching local environmental science. National science curriculum isn't built for the Gulf South, or designed to address the peculiarities of New Orleans water systems. That gap is what Ripples to Waves was created to fill.

Developed and piloted with Collegiate Academies' five New Orleans high schools, the course is nearly ready to share with science teachers citywide — and your support helps get it there.

What is the reach and impact of this program?
To date, Ripples to Waves has reached over 1,100 students — providing 66,000 hours of science instruction grounded in the environment they actually live in, and over 500 hours of professional learning for their teachers.

After learning the history and limitations of the city's drainage and levee systems, one student put it plainly: "Everything that was an advantage to our city became a disadvantage." Another, after studying how New Orleans was built and why it floods: "Now I know that flooding is inevitable. People settled here knowing this is what happens. So now it's like, we gotta face it." In our most recent unit, 65% of students said they were "very excited" to come to science class every day.

Why is funding needed?
Federal funding for programs like this one has been slashed, and Ripples to Waves depends on donors like you to keep going. 

Your gift on GiveNOLA Day goes directly toward:

• Teacher Stipends — $700 per teacher to attend a 4-day summer professional learning institute and receive coaching throughout the school year
• Classroom investigation materials— Unit kits cost $500 and supply up to 100 students; refill kits are $150

This program works. And community support has never mattered more. Every dollar you give this May goes directly into a New Orleans classroom, and toward the future of students who deserve to understand the city they call home.