(At left) Students from PS583 visit City Island with one of NYSG's Summer 2024 fellows from the Sea Grant Community Engaged Internship (CEI) Program; (At right) Law & Policy Fellow Stephanie Sistare Hill with NYSG Extension staff at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility, Brooklyn.
Contact:
Stacy Furgal, NYSG Great Lakes Fisheries and Ecosystem Health Specialist, E: slf85@cornell.edu, P: (315) 234-1329
NYSG programs provide undergraduate and law students with hands-on opportunities to address coastal issues
Oswego, NY, May 27, 2025 - The Sea Grant Community Engaged Internship (CEI) Program and New York Sea Grant (NYSG) New York Coastal Resilience Law & Policy Fellowship aim to broaden participation in marine and coastal professions by providing training and mentorship to the next generation of scientists, decision- and policy-makers, and community members. Through the 10-week CEI program, undergraduate students obtain field experience, attend professional learning workshops, and generate products that enrich the communities in which they work. The Law and Policy fellowship program offers law students the opportunity to engage in research projects focused on coastal issues. Fellows present their findings to local communities and legal experts, building their professional skills and networks.
In 2024, NYSG staff provided mentoring to six CEI undergraduate students and two Law and Policy Fellows, ensuring new experiences, networking opportunities, and valuable skills gained over the course of their program time.
The CEI fellows prepared various products, including informational fliers, social media posts, outreach materials, and fact sheets, to educate residents in coastal communities across New York State. Topics included freshwater mussels in the Great Lakes, microplastic mapping, sampling and analysis, natural and nature-based features monitoring in New York City, hard clam genetics and breeding, and diamondback terrapin monitoring. One student reviewed municipal codes related to shoreline management around the Peconic Estuary; the other created a case study and literature review on proposed legislation related to microfiber plastic pollution.
NYSG programming for undergraduate and law students provides valuable learning opportunities to address current coastal issues in local communities.
Project Partners/Funders:
• Bronx and Harlem Urban Waters Federal Partnership
• Columbia University
• City University of New York School of Law
• Friends of Flax Pond
• Long Island Sound Study
• Natural Areas Conservancy
• New Jersey Sea Grant
• New York City Parks
• Pace University School of Law
• Peconic Estuary Partnership
• Suffolk County Cooperative Extension/Marine Environmental Learning Center
• University at Buffalo
• Funding: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Sea Grant Office
More Info: New York Sea Grant
Established in 1966, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Sea Grant College Program promotes the informed stewardship of coastal resources in 34 joint federal/state university-based programs in every U.S. coastal state (marine and Great Lakes) and Puerto Rico. The Sea Grant model has also inspired similar projects in the Pacific region, Korea and Indonesia.
Since 1971, New York Sea Grant (NYSG) has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.
NYSG historically leverages on average a 3 to 6-fold return on each invested federal dollar, annually. We benefit from this, as these resources are invested in Sea Grant staff and their work in communities right here in New York.
Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.
New York Sea Grant, one of the largest of the state Sea Grant programs, is a cooperative program of the State University of New York (SUNY) and Cornell University. The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.
For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org, follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and YouTube). NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which it publishes 2-3 times a year.