Nehemias Chalma, Compost Facility Manager at Natural Selection Farms, spoke to teachers in both English and Spanish cohorts about using compost to support healthy soil. Where does good food go bad? This question gave educators in ESD 105, NCESD, and PSESD something to...
Partner stories
These stories are a collection of educator professional learning experiences and opportunities provided by ESD, CBO and Tribal School partners.

NCESD 171
North Central ESD implements Climate Science and NGSS Professional Learning to area educators by leveraging collaboration opportunities among NCESD staff, community-based organizations, and other regional ESDs. The collaboration efforts extend to building teams of teachers that work together to create authentic climate science experiences for their students.
6th and 7th Graders Explore Bioplastics as an Alternative to Traditional Plastics
The room was a buzz as students pulled their bioplastics from the cabinet where samples had been left drying over the weekend. Some sounds of disappointment could be heard across the room as well as some exclamations of “Check it out!” Eighteen middle school students...
Hot and Hazy Summers Connect Climate Change to Local Experience
Educators learned why we had such an extreme heat wave this past summer, as they heard from Robin Fox, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Spokane. Chelsea Freeman teaches high school in Tonasket, an agricultural community hit especially hard by the...
Dedicated Teachers Dig Into OER High School Science Curriculum
When a group of teachers convened last June to continue development of a integrated three-year, open educational resource, high school science curriculum, they recognized that since beginning this development journey four years before, their skills as curriculum...
Solutions Oriented Learning Storylines: Forests with ESDs 105 and 171
Workshop participants took on the role of trees and competed with each other for carbon, nutrients, and water. When Pacific Education Institute and two Central Washington Educational Service Districts thought about how to best serve the teachers in their region, an...
Implementing Green Chemistry and Sustainable Design Principles in Middle School
For a second time this year, the NCESD and Department of Ecology partnered up to offer a fully asynchronous Canvas Course designed to support teachers in learning about the principles of green chemistry and sustainable design. Teachers work their way through several...
Regional Science Coordinators are growing and supporting OpenSciEd use amongst middle school science teachers
Between 2018 and 2021, Washington State Regional Science Coordinators and a tea of dedicated middle school science teachers engaged in field testing OpenSciEd instructional units to help inform the development of a complete Grades 6-8 open educational resource (OER)....
Washington State High School Teachers and OpenSciEd: on the cutting edge of NGSS instruction and materials
Following our state's three year participation in helping develop the nationally recognized Middle School OpenSciEd materials, Washington State high school science teachers are stepping up to aid development of OpenSciEd's open educational resource instructional...
Statewide Partnerships Lead to Green Chemistry and Sustainable Design Workshop Series
In May of 2021, NCESD had the opportunity to partner with Washington Science Teacher Association's Johanna Brown and Washington State Department of Ecology's Green Chemist Saskia van Bergen to present a series of professional learning events for educators across the...