The purpose of this 12-hour, move at your own pace, series of workshops is to provide weekly guidance for you to learn about all six available Systems Education Experiences (SEE) Modules from Institute for Systems Biology that are climate-themed. The six modules are listed below. The purpose of learning about them is so that you can implement the pertinent lessons, pedagogical strategies, and/or entire modules in your classroom. We will first present the overarching flow of each module and then will discuss with teachers their needs and priorities for implementing units in the high school or middle school courses. This information will be used in the next sessions to plan, prepare, and implement these with the teachers’ students. We will join together weekly as a professional learning community and/or in individual mentoring sessions to review student work and to plan for the lessons ahead. All modules presented are exemplary supplemental units to engage students with current climate science problems / phenomenon / project-based learning experiences. The modules can fit into many core science, STEM, or CTE courses.  

First you will receive a 1.5-hour overview that will provide immediate information for using the modules. It will also guide the lesson planning for teachers to implement 1 module and/or some of the lessons and/or pedagogical strategies over the next months. Modules available to implement:  

1. Bioengineering a Sustainable World

2. Carbon’s Fate: Tracing Paths through Air, Sea and Ice

3. Ecological Networks

4. Invisible Forest: What’s in a Drop of Seawater?

5. Modeling Sustainable Food Systems: Food Security

6. Ocean Acidification: A Systems Approach to a Global Problem

The next 10.5 hours of this 12-hour series will guide high school science teachers to deeply learn what the 3-Dimensions of science learning looks like, and prepare to implement one problem-based, project-based, and/or phenomenon-based climate science module. This series will consist of flexibly scheduled synchronous sessions that will help teachers learn about and prepare to implement a STEM high school unit with climate science themes. Each series is built in 3 steps:

1. High school teacher participants will engage in portions of the lessons as a student would. The sessions will also support developing knowledge and skills around the three dimensional nature of these NGSS-aligned modules with an emphasis on the crosscutting concepts and scientific and engineering practices. Specifically, teachers will:

1. Learn about a Systems Education Experiences STEM high school module for use in their classroom
2. Engage their students in learning about climate science through authentic phenomena and 3-dimensional science learning
3. Connect with scientists during the series and invite them to engage with students
4. Extend teachers’ professional network across the region, by participating in professional learning communities (PLC) during the implementation of the unit
5. Participate in a research project on the effectiveness of shifting teaching practices around 3-dimensional climate science learning

2.   Teachers will have time with peers and a coach to practice and discuss instructional moves then do lesson planning. This series will teach educators how to maximize career-connected learning opportunities for students by exploring a variety of STEM fields. To ensure the collaborative, systems approach that ISB is known for, educators will have the chance to work with STEM professionals. As they engage with ISB’s network of scientists and education leaders, and work with peer educators, they strengthen and expand their professional network.

3.   Teachers will  implement the OER unit and collect student learning evidence along the way.  Teacher groups analyze the evidence together, and reflect on shifts in both science teaching and learning. Furthermore, the action phase of the learning arc nudges teachers to gather student voices in their classrooms and bring the findings back to the teacher network to discuss how this directly informs next instructional moves.

Funding provided by the Washington State Legislature  through the ClimeTime Proviso and is available to Washington State educators only.

Stipend: $250.00

STEM Clock Hours: 12

Standing meeting time / office hours will be Wednesdays, 4:30 - 6:00 PM, May 10 - June 14, 2023.