Is erosion always bad? Eighteen teachers from eleven northwest school districts grappled with this question at an in-person Connecting Communities Through Wetland Education workshop in March, a collaborative effort between Padilla Bay Estuarine Reserve and PEI.โฏ The...
Partner stories
These stories are a collection of educator professional learning experiences and opportunities provided by ESD, CBO and Tribal School partners.

Pacific Education Institute
Pacific Education Institute (PEI) delivers high-quality professional development and consultation services for educators in equitable, locally relevant, career connected, outdoor STEM education. PEIโs project, โSolutions Oriented Learning Storylines (SOLS),โ is designed to strengthen teachersโ equitable climate science instruction through locally relevant storylines.
Community Education in Action: Building Resilient Communities Through Intergenerational Learning and Storytelling
In the face of escalating climate and sociopolitical challenges, the Community Education in Action program promotes collaborative learning, bringing together diverse voices to bring communities together and co-create educational resources that address climate and...
Taking Learning Outside – a full day kick off for a yearlong series
It was a picture perfect autumn day when educators gathered at Luke Jensen Sports Park's community room for the first session of ESD112's Taking Learning Outside professional learning series. Educators from across Southwest WA joined a panel of experts to learn...
Community Education in Action
The Community Education in Action program is a collaborative series of workshops to exchange ideas and promote the co-creation of climate justice and environmental justice educational resources, using the Just Transition framework as a guiding model. Front and...
Do Ellensburg Cows Taste Like Beer? And Other Questions from PEIโs Food Waste Workshop
โA group of teachersโ walks into a barโ sounds like the setup for a groan-worthy joke, probably involving a pun. However, if the teachers in question just finished PEIโs Asynchronous Food Waste workshop, they might just be on a research mission. We hear you scoffing...
Braiding Sweetgrass Spring Book Study
From February through May this spring, 25 teachers from Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties met virtually to discuss the principles and practices of Robin Wall Kimmererโs seminal book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Wisdom of...
Festival of Trees Workshop Prepares Educators to Teach Forestry
When Elizabeth Nightingale announced that she would offer forestry classes next fall, Eatonville High School students responded enthusiastically. By April, the classes were full โ even though they wonโt start until September. โIโve gotten a lot of interest,โ says...
Phenomena-based Learning Workshop Creates Record Attendance and Completion Rates
PEIโs workshops are typically well attended, but what happened in May was exceptional. Over one hundred people registered for a Phenomena Based Learning: Solutions Oriented Storylines workshop and of those who attended, nearly all completed the course requirements....
Solar Solutions: PEI & ESD 123 team up for professional learning on renewable energy
Richland Public Library provided the perfect backdrop for four Central and Eastern Washington educators to explore how solar energy interacts with surfaces and materials here on Earth. When Central Washington FieldSTEM Coordinator Megan Rivard brought out the 1873...