Effective classroom management creates a welcoming learning environment that supports all learners, even when they experience challenges.

A classroom picture by Pexels found on the site Pixabay. First picture is original. Text has been added as well as a filter to take the photo out of focus. "Bricks Chairs Classroom" by Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0 / A derivative from the original workLicense: Creative Commons Attribution    

A classroom picture by Pexels found on the site Pixabay. Text has been added as well as a filter to take the photo out of focus. "Bricks Chairs Classroom" by Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0 / A derivative from the original workLicense: Creative Commons Attribution    

The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has developed a suite of foundational resources for beginning teachers, teachers working in new environments, or experienced teachers who want to refine or refresh specific elements of their classroom management practice. They can be used to individually reflect on and refine one’s own practice, or as shared resources to support mentoring and other collaborative and whole-school approaches to improving classroom management. This user guide explains the resources and provides suggestions for their use.

Clear communication is a skill that supports and maintains positive student behaviour. Clear communication is the use of clear and concise language to set expectations, give instructions and address and correct behaviour. It models positive classroom talk that supports students to understand and do what is expected of them, whilst also supporting a positive classroom culture.

This article continues an examination of each of the seven essential principles of climate literacy on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured. Principle 2 covers the complex interactions among the components of the Earth system. The author discusses the scientific concepts underlying the interactions and expands the discussion with diagrams, photos, and online resources.

This unit provides Common-Core aligned lessons based for Math 3, English 10, and Biology (NGSS Standards). The subjects are linked by a text on climate change, and they hit the standards of argumentation for English, comparing functions in Math 3, and human effects on environment in Biology.

This resource is a hub for information about teaching climate change across grade levels and content areas. 

We are concurrently experiencing two global crises - the climate crisis and COVID-19. What are connections between the two? Why are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities disproportionately affected by both? This asynchronous Canvas course explores these questions and more. The course includes recordings from two guest speakers. Dr. Isabel Carrera Zamanillo from Stanford University presents on climate justice connections. Dr. Carrie Tzou, Professor and Director of the Goodlad Institute for Educational Renewal at UW Bothell, shares strategies and instructional resources for teaching about COVID-19. 

In this fully asynchronous professional development opportunity designed for teachers, participants will have a chance to 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 from Dr. Kat Huybers, a climate scientist and lecturer from the University of Washington. The training guides understanding on the most salient climate change indicators in Washington. Participants review topics related to various themes including air quality, heat, agriculture, and first foods and connect content to their specific subject area and grade level.

Suney Park wants her students to know that what they learn in class is relevant to their lives and the world. In this introduction, she shows us how her students come up with a plan to recreate the Earth and its atmosphere and test their own hypotheses about rising CO2 levels.

Suney Park's hands-on activity has her students making the greenhouse effect happen in a model. Using a light bulb for the sun, they create different control groups that imitate Earth's atmosphere with the help of a soda bottle. This adds up to a meaningful experience that connects what students learn in class to real-world events.

After a month studying climate change, students create models of the earth and its atmosphere, and design experiments to test the variables involved in climate change. Students write their own driving questions, develop hypotheses, and build the models to use in their experiments.

Suney Park has her class of scientists set up their experiments step-by-step. Even though it can be chaotic and mistakes can be made, there is purpose and meaning to having the kids be responsible for all aspects of the experiment and the learning that goes on in that process.

The primary goal of these resources and programming, created as part of a larger initiative to expand climate justice education at MIT, is to provide support to faculty members and instructors across disciplines in integrating climate justice content and related instructional approaches into their courses.

The Toolkit houses a wide range of climate-justice-adaptable teaching modules, a starter guide for teaching climate justice, resources for students, and climate justice data sets that can serve as supportive tools to enhance teaching content and approaches.

Global climate change is rapidly impacting all life on earth. But impacts of climate change are complex, uneven, and worsening, with people from poverty-impacted and BIPOC communities often experiencing impacts most sharply. We must be prepared to understand and respond to climate science. Education is a vital context for building capacity for just, community-driven adaptation and resilience efforts as well as for promoting the enactment of equitable mitigation efforts around the world.

Justice-centered climate change learning is complex, but urgent. To support educators to build capacity for this work, we are creating a suite of resources focused on different aspects of this work. Climate science learning has to happen across PK-12 classroom, in informal education and outdoor contexts, and in community-based learning settings.

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.  

This learning resource will engage you and your colleagues in learning more about the importance of learning and teaching climate science as part of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). You will hear from multiple stakeholders about the importance and impact of learning about climate science, as well as engage with learning tools and reflection questions to deepen your learning and position you to take action in your setting. We envision this professional learning taking place in an ongoing community of practice. We encourage you to determine and proceed at your own pace that reflects the needs of your team.

Image by ejaugsburg from Pixabay

With students and educators under shelter-at-home orders, states and districts are faced with difficult decisions about how to support students’ science learning while they are home. Home environments support different aspects of student learning than school-based environments. Designing home-based learning experiences to intentionally take advantage of the unique assets of being at home can be supportive of students’ social, emotional, and mental health; provide a meaningful and complementary science learning experience; and allow students to explore real-world and personally relevant science in ways that are difficult to accomplish in school. Field-based examples of home and neighborhood investigations of ecological systems will be shared.