In this task from ClimeTime educators, students will demonstrate understanding of natural resources and their uses with respect to their impact on the Earth. Students will do short explanations, drawing an image, and providing evidence to support an argument.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task, by ClimeTime educators, is for 4th grade students. After class brainstorm of the causes and effects of flooding on a playground or in a local context, students will generate solutions to the problems related to the flooding. Students will select two solutions to describe how the solutions could be implemented and what factors affect the success of the solutions. Students will describe which of the two solutions they think is best and the reasons for their decision.
The resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task, from ClimeTime educators, is for late-elementary (3-5) students, especially while studying about the needs of plants. Students use a simulation to test different variables and explore how different plants have different needs. Then, students connect what they saw in the simulation to plants in their area.
The resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

Collecting weather data across time supports data collection and analysis practices. Students can use their own data to look for patterns across time. Engaging in this assessment activity, developed by ClimeTime educators, will help students: explain the components that constitute weather and explain that these components change in patterns; describe how various components of weather can be different at different times of the year; explain how changes in the various elements of weather create patterns and influence behavior.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task developed by educators in the ClimeTime project, is for third grade students to explore weather data and make predictions about the nature of weather in different seasons based on historical data patterns. Scale is also explored as students are asked to explain the difference between weather and climate so some understanding that climate is weather data collected over time, averaged over decades is needed.
Includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task, by ClimeTime educators, is for 5th grade students. After class discussions about trash, litter, and available programs for recycling and composting, students collect trash and sort it into “recycling,” “food waste/compostable,” and “landfill.” Students learn about littering behaviors. Students incorporate what they have learned to develop an argument using claim, evidence, reasoning.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task, by ClimeTime educators, is for 4th grade students. After class discussions about how dams affect rivers, students analyze aerial photographs of the Elwha River taken just before and at intervals after the removal of the Elwha Dam. Students incorporate what they have learned about erosion to explain the phenomenon of change in the turbidity of the water and structure of the beach at the mouth of the river.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

In this assessment task from ClimeTime educators, students explore data relevant to the claim “A change in air quality can affect rates of asthma-related hospitalizations.” using the Department of Health’s Washington Tracking Network (WTN). Students develop an argument based on the evidence they gather that supports or refutes the claim.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

The KNOW Curriculum is one of several HIV/STD curriculum options available to school districts in Washington state. The following documents provide school districts with resources to assist in identifying and/or developing an effective HIV/STD prevention program for their students. Included in the OSPI-developed curriculum are HIV/AIDS prevention materials and considerations for teacher selection and training as well as parent and community involvement.

Available documents:
Grades 5-6, English and Spanish
Grades 7-8, English and Spanish

This assessment task, from ClimeTime educators, is aligned with middle school grades 6-8. The assessment context within the middle school curriculum is thermal energy transfer and developing a model for particle motion as energy transfers. Students are presented with a discrepant event when two ice cubes of the same size next to each other melt at astonishingly different rates. Before starting this assignment, students should have practice with drawing motion lines on particles and with drawing arrows for direction of heat transfer – this is not their first activity working with conduction and particles.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

In this assessment task from ClimeTime educators, students model thermal energy transfer between a hot liquid and a cooler solid, exploring how this might also occur in everyday phenomena.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task, from ClimeTime educators, is targeted to students in grades 6–8 studying body systems or algal blooms. Students develop a model showing the interactions that allow humans to detect issues in water quality based on the taste of the water.
Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

This task, by ClimeTime educators, is targeted to students in grades 6–8 studying ecology and human impacts on the environment. Students identify relationships between human activity and environmental impacts on water resources. Educators can leverage students’ ideas to assess understandings of criteria in evaluating solutions.
Resources include a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

These are full-course openly licensed resources for districts interested in exploring OER options when considering core instructional materials for district adoption.

Use this checklist to make sure that your resource meets all the requirements for open licensing. Please note that it is very helpful to review this checklist BEFORE you begin development work so that you are designing your resource with open licensing requirements in mind from the beginning.

This link goes to the Strategic Action group on OER Commons where you can download a pdf version of the document or remix the editable version.

To define the copyright owner for any materials created by Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) employees, contractors, and grantees. To clarify the requirement for open licensing of those materials.

This policy will allow school districts, Educational Service Districts, and members of the public, to realize the educational impact from the substantial investments the state, the federal government, and private foundations have made (and will continue to make) in educational resources created by OSPI employees.

This policy is not retroactive and does not pertain to work created before the effective date on this document.