PSESD
Puget Sound ESD’s ClimeTime work engages teachers and district leader partners in professional learning using the NGSS climate science standards to ensure each of their students, especially those underserved in our current science learning systems, with relevant, phenomena-driven learning opportunities. We partner with community-based organizations to provide both professional learning for teachers and for district science leaders.
Teacher Professional Development
Collaborating for Ambitious Science Teacher Learning (CASTL)
CASTL is a partnership between Puget Sound ESD, Northwest ESD and Olympic ESD to engage teachers in the Ambitious Science Teacher (AST) framework and support their implementation of the AST practices through the examination of student work. In 2019-2020, PSESD will partner with Washington Green Schools to share an NGSS-aligned Air Quality learning opportunity with a cohort of elementary teachers. These teachers will gather monthly during the school year to receive support to implement Ambitious Science Teaching practices connected to the climate science standards at their grade levels.
Climate Science for Middle School
At middle school, we again partner with Washington Green Schools to engage life, Earth and physical science teachers in the climate science standards for their content area. In addition, we will support their identification and use of local, climate science-related contexts that are more likely to engage their curious learners.
Climate Science for High School Chemistry & Physics Teachers
Our high school project builds on previous work supporting chemistry and physics teachers as they embed science concepts in local climate science phenomena. This year, our high school participants will pay particular attention to climate justice phenomena.
Leadership Support
Puget Sound Science Leadership Collaborative
The Science Leadership Collaborative is a partnership between Puget Sound ESD, the North Sound LASER Alliance and the South Sound LASER Alliance. District science leaders come together several times a year to work together around common interests (e.g. instructional practices, cultural competence, curriculum-assessment resources). Climate justice and climate proviso resources will be shared at this years’ meetings. Compelling phenomena in this work include “Why do people living less than one mile apart have nearly a 10-year difference in life expectancy?” and “How could the immigration of Europeans to the Americas have contributed to the Little Ice Age?”
Partners & Collaborators
- University of Washington Ambitious Science Teaching group
- PASTL Teacher Leaders
- South Sound and North Sound LASER Alliances
- Washington Green Schools
- IslandWood
Success Stories from Puget Sound ESD
Using Public Health Data to Study Climate Change Impacts
Exposing students to real data connected to their lives and their communities is a hallmark of the NGSS science and engineering practices. In the spring of 2021, DOH epidemiologists partnered with a professional development provider from Puget Sound ESD to produce...
Using Shellfish to Teach Climate Change
Shellfish are an important traditional food source with cultural significance for coastal Native people and the foundation of an iconic industry for Washington state. The shellfish industry here generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year and employs thousands...
Connecting Lessons of COVID and Climate Change
A new virtual training, COVID and Climate Change helps teachers explore the relationships among climate change, COVID, and social injustice. This professional learning workshop, a collaboration between EarthGen and ESD 112, was first offered on January 23 and attended...