The NOS Management and Budget Office (MBO) provides timely value-added public service, leadership, operational oversight, and system coordination of financial, administrative, policy, communications, and product delivery and services for National Ocean Service and NOAA ocean communities.
In FY 22, NOAA Planet Stewards (NPS) saw a 24% increase in subscribers (from 24,000 to 30,000) to its online newsletter, The Watch, making it the most subscribed education focused e-newsletter at NOAA.
With students returning to classrooms nationwide, NPS educators made significant contributions to the protection and conservation of natural resources. NSP educators worked with students, families, and the public in nine states to address local environmental issues including marine debris, habitat restoration, invasive species removal, and atmospheric carbon reduction. These hands-on activities and projects involved 5,880 K-12 and 69 university students, 315 educators, and 394 volunteers and family members. Students spent over 84,000 hours learning the science related to their stewardship projects and engaging in stewardship activities. During NPS projects, over 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of marine debris were removed from beaches and wetland areas, including 4,075 cigarette butts and 615 small plastic pellets (aka nurdles). NPS participants removed 119 kilograms (262 pounds) of invasive zebra mussels, common carp, and quagga mussels and 65.2 cubic meters (701 square feet) of invasive plant biomass. Participants planted 1,712 native trees and shrubs and restored over 5 acres (20,400 square meters) of land. These and other activities will lead to a calculated reduction of over 7.5 tons (6,803 kilograms) of atmospheric carbon dioxide just one year after planting. In addition, educators using NOS science and stewardship programming completed over 1,450 hours of synchronous and asynchronous learning and planned to share what they learned with over 32,000 students and colleagues in the coming year.
Students in Panama Beach, Florida, sorting and identifying marine debris collected from local beaches to learn more about the types and amounts of items that become marine debris.
The NOS website had about 20.4 million visitors in FY 22. Referrals to the website from organic traffic (users primarily from Google Search) grew 10.4% compared to the last fiscal year. Google searches accounted for 639 million impressions in FY 22. This means that 639 million people were presented with NOS page results based on the search terms they used. Of that 639 million, 11.5 million people clicked on a link to get to the NOS website. The NOS website’s average ranking on Google search pages is eight, which means that NOS pages are overwhelmingly presented near the top on the first page of Google results when people search for ocean- or coastal-related terms or phrases. This applies not only to the U.S., but for the entire English-speaking world. Of note, the NOS website also published NOS's new Sea Level Rise Technical Report in February 2022, which has received more than 263,000 visitors to date.
In FY 22, NOS Instagram followers increased 15% (from 111,790 to 128,841 followers). The number of Facebook page “likes” grew 6% (from 120,838 to 128,309); the number of Twitter followers grew 5% (from 190,530 to 200,496); and the NOS YouTube Channel gained 1,494,012 video views. Our most intensely shared and deeply appreciated posts were on the water levels and post-event aerial imagery from Hurricane Ian.
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