Ever wonder how to talk to students about climate change and how to empower them to take action? Many elementary teachers in Washington State wonder about this too! In an effort to support teachers, Regional Science Coordinators in Tri-Cities, Yakima, Wenatchee, and...
Partner stories
These stories are a collection of educator professional learning experiences and opportunities provided by ESD, CBO and Tribal School partners.
NEWESD 101
Northeast Washington ESD 101 focused on creating a way to reach all 288 schools in their region with standards that fit their scope and sequence while expanding teachers understanding of climate science. This resulted in larger professional development for regions and individualized professional development for some schools.
Our Climate is Changing, Why Aren’t We? Getting Started Using Children’s Literature
In the spring of 2022, Regional Science Coordinators met to reflect on Climate Literacy work completed in 2021-22. A few patterns began to emerge. The first pattern was that elementary teachers were excited to bring climate science to their classrooms, but unsure of...
EarthGen Expands Climate Justice League Statewide
Teacher Casey Jones’ family includes migrant farmworkers, whose lives are directly affected by climate change and social injustice. The students at Rowena Chess Elementary School where Casey teaches also see the effects of these twin crises in their daily lives....
Sharp-Tailed Grouse Connects Students to Climate Change
Climate change will affect every aspect of young people’s lives, but its incredible scale makes it hard for them to comprehend. Moreover, connecting what kids learn in school to real world problems is one of the biggest challenges teachers face. EarthGen’s training...
Spokane Student Advisory Council on Climate Change
On April 22, 2022, students from Spokane Public Schools, community organizers, and staff from Gonzaga University's Center for Climate, Society, and the Environment gathered for an Earth Day demonstration. Student involvement...
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...
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...
ClimeTime cited in leading science journal
The Washington state program ClimeTime, which is facilitated by the state’s nine Education Service Districts (ESDs) and community partners, was recently cited as a popular and effective model for educator education in climate science. The Journal of Science Policy and...