North Central ESD implements Climate Science and NGSS Professional Learning by leveraging commonly used instructional materials, and adapting those materials to focus on local, culturally-relevant phenomena, connecting to English Learners, and expanding opportunities to career-connection and community-based organizations.
Teacher Professional Development
Project GLAD: Voices of Hope
NCESD’s Kate Lindholm in collaboration with Dr. Sara Martinez developed and published a full open educational resource GLAD unit around climate science entitled Voices of Hope. The enduring understanding of the unit is that we have individual and collective power to create change related to climate science.
This unit was presented in brief to educators during NCESD’s 2019 STEM Summit. Educators were able to experience a few of the activities and strategies making up this unit.
Over the course of the 2019-2020 school year, Kate and Sara will provide four, three-day trainings in four regions of the state of Washington. The intended audience is GLAD trainers as they are poised to train trainers, ensuring a larger impact of this unique resource to educators throughout Washington.
A full GLAD training will take place in north central Washington in collaboration with tribal educators.
Check out the calendar of ClimeTime events for GLAD unit training dates.
NCESD will partner with Mechelle LaLanne to develop resources that support educators interested in connecting Native American stories to their current instructional materials.
Storytelling is a powerful tool that allows each listener to find their own learning and meaning in what the story has to tell them. Connecting Native American stories and culture to science gives learners an opportunity to more deeply connect with and develop an explanation of natural phenomena.
WCAS Assessment Resource
As a way to reach our rural and remote districts, provide experience around our state assessment system and engage teachers in learning more about the Next Generation Science Standards, NCESD contracted with Tom Hathorn to provide online professional learning. The Understand, Design and Use WCAS Style Assessments course used Zoom and Google sites as the platform for meeting. Over the six sessions teachers were able to deepen the knowledge of three dimensional assessment as well as reflect on their own practice. Watch for a WCAS assessment scenarios resource for teachers.
At the elementary level, we are implementing new instructional materials through our STEM Materials Cooperative which supports eighteen of our twenty-nine school districts. The Smithsonian Science for the Classroom modules were developed to meet the Next Generation Science Standards. Knowing that students develop their science identity early and that science is often only taught a few minutes per week at the elementary level, providing high quality instructional materials with intentional professional learning is critical if elementary students are to gain the foundation needed to understand the complexities of climate science at later years. In August 2019, teachers from across the region attended the 2019 NCESD STEM Summit which offered eleven different professional development sessions providing training in the Smithsonian Science for the Classroom modules. These sessions were led by teacher leaders from the region.
Using the Ambitious Science Teaching framework, area teacher leaders developed AST units for the curriculum that will help students develop explanations for a variety of engaging phenomenon. These teachers presented their phenomena based modifications at the 2019 NCESD STEM Summit in August to other teachers from around the region with the intention of teachers implementing the modifications in their classrooms. CASTL teachers will continue to make adjustments and develop more phenomena units as they reflect on student work and teacher feedback. These unit plans will be available as an open educational resource for any teacher that may have already adopted or will adopt these units.
At the high school level, we have built upon some of the work we began in the region around year-long high school courses. We specifically focused in on the second year course as it is in the process of being field tested and has significant connections to performance expectations around climate science and human impacts. This second course is titled, Integrated Geoscience Biology. During one unit, The Stressed Out Pika, students learn about the carbon cycle and impacts of climate change. Almost 400 students are experiencing these units and teachers are able to adjust the unit and consider the student learning connected with the work. With the support of school district professional development and ClimeTime funding, the team will continue to develop course work and assessments to complete a three year high school course of study. These resources will be made available online through Washington’s OER Commons.
Success Stories from North Central ESD
This fall students at Cascade High School in Leavenworth have been studying what the large scale disappearance of American Pikas from regions experiencing warmer summers and decreased winter snowpack can tell us about energy and matter in the environment and the...
August 13th through the 15th saw the hustle and bustle of over 250 teachers participating in the 2019 NCESD STEM Summit. The event was held at the Wenatchee Convention Center in downtown Wenatchee. The Summit offered over 100 different STEM related sessions ranging in...
NCESD 171 hosted Environmental Chemist and Whitman Professor, Frank Dunnivant for a seminar and Q&A sessions with educators on Wednesday, March 20th. More than 50 attended the seminar to hear about the complex environmental issues people have successfully...