This lesson plan can is geared for social studies, but can also be used in other content areas.

Trauma can result when a group of people are forced away from their schools, friends, businesses/work, neighborhoods/communities, then incarcerated without due process, under difficult conditions.
Students explore how historical and traumatic events such as Japanese American incarceration affect communities for the long term and how communities have worked to heal.

Note: This is not a ‘typical’ social studies lesson on Japanese American incarceration. It will involve working with material regarding trauma.
Activities 1 and 2 cover life skills and can be offered in the classroom at any time. (It may be ideal to teach this toward the beginning of the school year) Activity 3 is a foundational piece on what intergenerational trauma is. Activities 4, 5 and 6 go deeper into this topic.

The Washington State History Project is a multiyear initiative that originated in 2020 with the goal of transforming how Washington state history is taught. The project brought together educators, district facilitators, cultural consultants, and local experts to create six project-based learning (PBL) units that are anti-biased, interdisciplinary, place-based, and aligned to the Washington State Social Studies Learning Standards and the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. The course weaves together original content, multimedia resources, primary sources, and curricular materials from Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State, developed by Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

It is important to educate future voters about the issues, processes, and impacts of voting in elections. These resources include links to lesson plans, videos, games, and printables to assist teachers K—12 to promote civic participation and voting.

It is important to educate future voters about the issues, processes, and impacts of voting in elections. These resources include links to lesson plans, videos, games, and printables to assist teachers K—12 to promote civic participation and voting.

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.

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.

At OSPI, part of our mission is to prepare students for civic engagement throughout their lives. We believe our schools must engage and empower students, from an early age, with opportunities to participate in civil conversations, examples of effective civic engagement, and tools to find peaceful solutions to community problems.OSPI’s Social Studies and Social-Emotional Learning teams have put together resources for educators, families, and students to help with these difficult conversations.

The Family Engagement Guidance and Toolkit was developed to support districts, schools, and classrooms with planning for implementation of positive family engagement and participation practices. Each section begins with guided questions that were compiled from considerations and concerns raised by workgroup members.

Washington’s Basic Education Act requires that school districts provide opportunities for every student to “understand the importance of work and finance and how performance, effort, and decisions directly affect future career and educational opportunities.”

Financial education attends to the development of short-term and long-term skills and competencies for academic and personal growth. Financial education supports students’ academic performance in several subject areas and plays a major role in preparing students for college, career, and a life of financial stability and well-being

The Fourth Grade Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects, What Happened at Dry Falls?, uses the phenomena of a local Washington landform to explore erosion from the Ice Age Floods.  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.

The Global Digital Library (GDL) has been developed to increase the availability of high-quality reading resources in underserved languages worldwide where there is currently a lack of quality early grade reading resources. The site primarily hosts reading instruction books and storybooks for leisure reading, but the GDL will also link to more interactive resources, such as literacy games.

Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects is a statewide Clime Time collaboration among ESD 123, ESD 105, 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 integration 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) focused on grade level Performance Expectations, and 2) leverage ELA and Mathematics Washington State Learning Standards.

Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects is a statewide Clime Time collaboration among ESD 123, ESD 105, 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 integration 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) focused on grade level Performance Expectations, and 2) leverage ELA and Mathematics Washington State Learning Standards.

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.