Our professional development opportunities are designed to support powerful learning experiences that connect to students’ lives. In this time of increasing awareness and activism, we are also joining with teachers to address the vast racial, economic, and environmental disparities in our communities and classrooms.

During this course, you will collaborate with IslandWood staff and fellow teachers to bring science alive for your students. Explore how local phenomena can be used to guide unit planning and delivery across disciplines, develop strategies for empowering students to identify relevant local phenomena, and integrate the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices into exploration of your schoolyard or your students’ neighborhoods. Throughout the course, we will be engaging in critical dialogue and reflecting on the role of localized science in supporting equity, justice, and anti-racism in education.

By the end of this course participants will:

• Collaborate with and learn from other teachers as a part of a professional learning community
• Try out strategies for empowering students to identify local phenomena that are interesting, relevant, and draw on the strengths of their communities
• Experiment with a student-centered, phenomenon-driven storyline, using understandings developed through practices and content from multiple disciplines (including Next Generation Science Standards, ELA, Math and Social Studies)
• Reflect on how making science local and relevant is a part of embedding equity and justice in science and education
• Adapt and implement activities to work with students and their families in the context of at-home and/or in-school learning

The course includes:

• A one-hour asynchronous session to watch by September 14th, followed by a 3.5-hour group zoom session on September 19th. Following these sessions, you will collaborate with a teacher team to develop, adapt, and discuss implementation of activities through monthly two-hour zoom meetings. The whole group will come back together after school hours on December 8th to share successes and learnings from the fall. You will be sent a link to our Google Classroom (where you can access detailed information and the asynchronous session) in your registration confirmation email.

Additional details:

• This course is intended for educators who teach science to K-5 students. Informal educators are also welcome!
• Teachers can earn up to 14 STEM Clock Hours. Teachers will need to claim and pay for the clock hours after the course is complete on PDEnroller.
• Washington State Public School Teachers who complete the course will receive a $380 stipend upon submission of teacher and student work and completion of assessments. This stipend will be paid by the Puget Sound ESD from OSPI ClimeTime funds.
• There is a $20 fee to register for the course, but it will be refunded to teachers who attend the first whole group session.