In their continued support of climate science education, the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) created these resources to support K-12 teachers of all content areas integrate climate science and climate change into their instruction.  

ClimeTime is a state-led network for climate science learning that helps teachers and their students understand climate science issues affecting Washington communities.

OSPI manages the network and the grant funding flows through all nine Educational Service Districts (ESDs) in Washington ($3 million) and seven community-based organizations (CBOs) ($1 million) which are launching programs for science teacher training linking Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and climate science. In addition to teacher professional development, the project supports the 16 grantees to develop instructional materials, design related assessment tasks and evaluation strategies, and facilitate student events.

Earth Systems and Changes from Educational Service District 123, provides professional learning resources for K-5 teachers around elementary Earth Science and Climate Science related standards content.

It also provides learning to assist in the development of classroom tasks: Claims, Evidence Reasoning, and Models and Explanations, that can be used formatively to elicit student ideas and to support changes in student thinking over time.

License: License: Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY)
Except where otherwise noted, this template by Educational Service District 123 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All logos and trademarks are property of their respective owners. Content within template is the copyright of the creator.

The Washington State Legislature has invested $16 million in climate science education since 2018. This portal contains links to professional learning resources and instructional materials developed by the ClimeTime network of educational partners who came together as a result of this funding. ClimeTime partners provide climate science professional learning to Washington science teachers, using innovative strategies and effective practices. Many projects also create instructional materials aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, to support student climate science learning.

In the 2018-2019 school year, Northwest Educational Service District 189 brought together a design team of six Pre Kindergarten - Kindergarten educators through a ClimeTime grant to find play-based, and engaging ways to teach climate science to early learners. This course shares out the findings of the team, including some work around designing for equity and 3-Dimensional Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) alignment. You will engage in activities to use with students including a puddle walk, soil permeability tests, and lesson examples. Phenomenon based lessons will be shared as well as a list of resources and recommended books compiled by our design team.

In this virtual professional development opportunity designed for teachers, participants will have a chance to authentically engage with activities and experts as they grow their understanding of how climate change has and will impact their community. Teachers analyze and interpret recent climate science data and progress understanding on the most salient climate change indicators in Washington. Additionally, teachers explore the efforts to conserve and protect a local species, its cultural significance and how these efforts are indicative of a greater effort to address climate change. Teachers leave this training with increased preparedness to leverage a local species or climate change impact in their classroom to spur action in their community. Contact EarthGen at info@earthgenwa.org for more information.

This integrated 3rd grade unit addresses the NGSS Life Science bundles for Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems (3-LS2-1, 3-LS4-3, and 3-LS4-4) and Inheritance and Variation of Traits: Life Cycles and Traits (3-LS1-1, 3-LS3-1, 3-LS3-2, and 3-LS4-2). Students embark on a mission to protect their native plants and animals by devising a plan to regulate and prevent the spread of invasive species in the area. Through a series of FOSS investigations and other OER (open educational
resource) lessons and activities, students learn about how an organism’s traits aid in survival, how parents pass on traits to their offspring, and how the environment influences plant and animal traits and behaviors.

Salmon play an important role in the ways of life, culture, history, and resilience of the tribes of this region. The tribes of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest have always depended on salmon as a primary source of food. Overfishing, roads, dams, pollution, and other human practices have been a growing threat to the survival of salmon, which has impacted fishing, salmon-eaters, and the environment. These lessons introduce to children the role of salmon in the history and culture of the first peoples of our region.

The Honoring the Salmon lessons are designed to be taught as a series but can also be taught individually, adapted for each grade level, K-3. They can easily be integrated into science units on salmon, water or watersheds. Content knowledge from these lessons can provide background knowledge for 3rd grade and 4th grade Social Studies CBAs.

NOTE: These lessons are designed around fiction and non-fiction books that are not a part of the STI curriculum. Most of them are easily available through public libraries. Some may need to be purchased.

These lesson resources align to additional Washington State Social Studies, English Language Arts, Environmental and Sustainability, and Social Emotional Learning standards. A full standard curriculum document is included at the bottom of the Pathway 2 introduction page.

Template developed by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) ClimeTime grantees.This format is designed to be an example of how to develop a coherent lesson or suite of lessons that integrate other content areas such as English Language Arts, Mathematics and other subjects into science learning for students.

Killer Whale Task Force is the introduction to eight units in the Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum. Each unit contains a detailed unit plan, a slideshow, student journal, and assessments. All elements are adaptable and can be tailored to your local community.
This unit introduces the overall phenomenon for the curriculum-the endangered status of the Southern Resident Killer Whales - and puts students in the roles of working group members in the Governor-appointed taskforce to identify the biggest threats and recommend solutions to save the whales. No matter which units you choose to implement with your class, start here to set the premise.

In this unit, students wonder about the physical drivers of ocean movement, explore density differences, and take a look at some tiny creatures who struggle to keep their place in the water column in the midst of all that ocean motion.
Each unit of the Explore the Salish Sea curriculum contains a detailed unit plan, a slideshow, student journal, and assessments. All elements are adaptable and can be tailored to your local community.

In Unit 2 of the Explore the Salish Sea curriculum, students will review the water cycle, learn the parts of a watershed, and the effects of erosion and pollution, then learn ways of purifying these waters before they enter our streams and estuaries to safeguard these ecosystems for marine life and us.
Each unit in this series contains a detailed unit plan, a slideshow, student journal, and assessments. All elements are adaptable and can be tailored to your local community.

Salish Sea Rocks is Unit 3 of the Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum. Each unit contains a detailed unit plan, a slideshow, student journal, and assessments. All elements are adaptable and can be tailored to your local community.
In the unit, students will explore Earth’s processes that create the perfect spawning habitat for a few species of small but mighty fish.

In this unit, students will solve a mystery about changes in oyster larvae in the Salish Sea, causing oyster farmers to send their larvae to Hawaii until they grow stronger. They will look for clues in:
• activities and games, articles, and films that introduce the concepts of habitat and ecosystem
• structures and behaviors for survival in intertidal zone habitats
• the Earth-moon-sun interactions that drive the tides
• the importance of First Foods of the intertidal to first nations communities;
• how intertidal organisms interact across the Salish Sea food web
Afterward, they will arrive at the importance of a balanced carbon cycle in the health of the ocean and use a full scientific investigation to test if their local waters have a healthy pH for oyster larvae and other shelled creatures. Clear pathways of hope are woven into this complex issue, so students know that scientists and leaders are working to solve this problem - and kids can help!

The moon is more explored than the ocean, and that includes the Salish Sea. Where it is inconvenient or even impossible for people to go, we can engineer technology to go there for us, like the Mars Rovers, space probes, automatic unmanned vehicles, drones, and in this unit, remotely operated vehicles (ROV’s). Ocean Tech revisits the engineering process, but this time it requires physical, mechanical, and electrical engineers working together as a team to achieve a student-driven mission.

Chapter 5, Life in the Deep: The Subtidal World, is our first look into the amazing life forms that live their whole lives underwater. Is there access to the subtidal world near your school? If you can get to one (even if it is a pond or a pool), your students’ engineering efforts will find their reward. What mystery or problem will your students explore with their own ROV? Dive in!

Did you know that a elephant seal can hold its breath for 77 minutes and dive 5,000 feet (1524 meters) into the sea? We are still working on the science to discover just what enables these remarkable feats under intense pressure, cold, and dark. Diving birds and mammals utilize physical, behavioral, and physiological adaptations to withstand the extreme conditions of diving and still return to the surface with oxygen reserves (and a meal!). Your students can join us in investigating just how they do this.

This unit will review the concepts of pressure-changing with depth, marine food webs, structure and function, photosynthesis and respiration, and of course, the process of science. It will introduce metabolism, the diving reflex, sensory structures for detecting prey, wave properties of acoustics, trophic pyramids, and bioaccumulation of toxins in long-lived predators. Oh yeah, and there will be orca forensics!

Migration explores the routes, distances, and purposes for wildlife migration with a special focus on Pacific salmon. This iconic species of the Pacific Northwest has shaped life in Salish Sea watersheds since they first entered rivers and creeks to spawn, bringing their ocean-derived nutrients in reach of land animals, plants, and people. Nearly 1/4 of the nitrogen in the leaves of our giant temperate rainforest trees once swam in the sea as salmon. They are the reason for the great natural wealth of the Salish Sea and beyond.

Learning to identify habitat needs based on their specific migrations will empower students to identify ways they can improve salmon habitat near their own schools and possibly design and carry out a salmon habitat improvement project. Reach out to salmon experts in your community for support with this unit and project, from protecting storm drains to raising salmon in the classroom. Share your salmon project story along the way. Your school may just be featured as our next Salish Sea Heroes!

Exploring Climate Science With Virtual Reality, a Teacher/Scientist Partnership experience. High school teachers engage with working scientists and engineers to for content learning for climate science and virtual reality and engage in follow-up sessions with professional development facilitators to develop pedagogical expertise for use in creating formative classroom tasks that are formative and productive. It is a three day initial workshop with four follow-up days to
1) deepen teacher understanding by learning with climate scientists to understand climate science standards content knowledge
2) increase awareness and knowledge of the use of virtual reality devices in climate science learning
30 to co-develop a climate science simulation game for use on Oculus Go devices with teachers, their students and a virtual reality scientist/engineer team
4) to develop and implement embedded formative classroom tasks that
complement climate science learning by using a relevant, place based phenomena, and provide insights into student thinking and productive next steps in learning.

Creative Commons License CC BY
Exploring Climate Science With Virtual Reality Professional Learning Module by Georgia Boatman, ESD 123 and Peggy Willcuts PNNL is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The culmination of the Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum is improving the environment for wildlife and people in your own community. Students will review the science and traditional ecological knowledge-based recommendations they have made after each scientific investigation throughout the previous units, then choose one to put into action. Their choices will depend on available resources, time, and expertise available.

The Fifth Grade Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects,Earth and Space: Patterns in the Sky, uses the phenomena of perceived sun and moon movements that seem to move around the Earth to explore stars, Earth orbit and rotation and moon orbit around Earth.  It is part of Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects project, a statewide Clime Time collaboration among ESD 123, ESD 105, North Central ESD, and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Development of the resources is in response to a need for research- based science lessons for elementary teachers that are integrated with English language arts, mathematics and other subjects such as social studies. The template for Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects  can serve as an organized, coherent and research-based roadmap for teachers in the development of their own NGSS aligned science lessons.  Lessons can also be useful for classrooms that have no adopted curriculum as well as to serve as enhancements for  current science curriculum. The EFSIS project brings together grade level teams of teachers to develop lessons or suites of lessons that are 1) pnenomena based, focused on grade level Performance Expectations, and 2) leverage ELA and Mathematics Washington State Learning Standards.