by Joe O’Connell

A North­eastern Uni­ver­sity out­reach pro­gram designed to help under­served school-​​aged girls develop sci­en­tific inquiry and cit­i­zen­ship skills was hon­ored Monday by the Mass­a­chu­setts Exec­u­tive Office of Energy and Envi­ron­mental Affairs.

Beach Sis­ters is a col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­gram between Northeastern’s Marine Sci­ence Center and Girls Inc. of Lynn, a non­profit based in Lynn, Mass­a­chu­setts. The pro­gram received the highest-​​level cer­tifi­cate of excel­lence awarded at the Secretary’s Awards for Excel­lence in Energy and Envi­ron­mental Edu­ca­tion cer­e­mony, which was held at the Mass­a­chu­setts State House.

Through Beach Sis­ters, high school peer leaders are trained to deliver after-​​school pro­gram­ming in the STEM fields—science, tech­nology, engi­neering, and math—to middle– and elementary-​​school stu­dents. Under the guid­ance of an Ameri­Corps Mass­a­chu­setts Promise Fellow and grad­uate stu­dent vol­un­teers from the Marine Sci­ence Center, peer leaders plan and deliver pro­gram­ming in the class­room and through informal drop-​​in sessions.

The programming—which includes a touch tank with marine species from the Marine Sci­ence Center and class­room ses­sions on stormwater runoffs’ impact on local marine life—also aims to help youth dis­cover aca­d­emic and career oppor­tu­ni­ties in marine and envi­ron­mental science.

The Beach Sis­ters part­ner­ship began in 2011, and now more than 100 girls par­tic­i­pate in its pro­grams each year.

“The ulti­mate goal of envi­ron­mental edu­ca­tion is devel­oping envi­ron­men­tally respon­sible cit­i­zens, and a stew­ard­ship ethic develops when people are given oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice addressing local issues,” said Carole McCauley, out­reach pro­gram coor­di­nator at the Marine Sci­ence Center. “Engaging youth in the local com­mu­nity, espe­cially an under­served city like Lynn, cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties for many of our fac­ulty and stu­dents to com­mu­ni­cate the sig­nif­i­cance of their research to young people.”

The program’s six peer leaders, all of whom attend high school in Lynn, were on hand Monday to receive the award from Matthew Beaton, sec­re­tary of the Exec­u­tive Office of Energy and Envi­ron­mental Affairs.

“The expe­ri­ence of being rec­og­nized at the state­house for their efforts and their com­mit­ment to envi­ron­mental edu­ca­tion is some­thing that shows our teen peer leaders—as well as the adults who mentor and sup­port them—that what they are doing is truly valued by leaders in our society,” McCauley said.

Originally published in news@Northeastern on May 14, 2015.

Peer leaders with the Marine Science Center’s Beach Sisters program were honored at the State House on Monday. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University