ClimeTime Resource Portal

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.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Barbara Soots, Washington OSPI OER Project, Ellen Ebert, Kimberley Astle, Elizabeth Schmitz, Johanna Brown, Lori Henrickson

Elementary Assessment Task - Weather and Regions

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Alisa Winkler, ClimeTime: Climate Science Learning, Jeff Ryan, Sarah Neyman

Elementary Assessment - Growing Plants

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Barbara Bromley, Sarah Neyman

Elementary Assessment - Patterns in Weather

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Clancy Wolf, Deb Morrison, Joanne Johnson, Kim Weaver

Elementary Assessment - Flooded Playground – Designing Solutions to Flooding Problems

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Barbara Bromley, Jacob Parikh, Jodi Crimmins, Shelley Boyce

Elementary Assessment - Washington River Erosion – Dam Removal Impact

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Brianne Caviness, Larissa Threats

Elementary Assessment - Trash Talk – Littering Behavior

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Barbara Bromley, Jacob Parikh, Sarah Neyman

Elementary Assessment - Breathing Easier

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Brianne Caviness, Jeff Ryan, Larissa Threats

Middle School Assessment - Modeling Temperature Change

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Alexis MacNevin, Nicole Kraght

Middle School Assessment - We’ve Got Water

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Brianne Caviness, Jeff Ryan, Larissa Threats

Middle School Assessment - Melting Ice – Modeling Heat Transfer

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Elizabeth Vroom, Jeff Ryan, Lexie Macnevin

High School Assessment - Carbon Footprint

This task by ClimeTime educators, is designed for high school students studying the impacts of human activities on the carbon cycle and/or global warming. Given two people with different human activities, students compare and contrast the behaviors that impact climate change. This resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

Material Type: Assessment

Middle School Assessment – Sources of Taste and Odor Problems in Lake Youngs

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Baljinder Grewel, Jacob Parikh, Neeraj Agnihotri

High School Assessment - Climate Change and Human Health

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.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Christina Scott, Korey Peterson

High School Assessment - How Acidic Is It? Impacts of Ocean Acidification

This task by ClimeTime educators at Graham Kapowsin High School, is for high school chemistry students studying pH and/or equilibrium or for high school environmental science students studying ocean acidification. Students identify patterns and connections between graphs of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, oceanic carbon dioxide concentrations, and ocean pH. Given chemical equations for calcium carbonate formation and bicarbonate formation, students explain how atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases and ocean acidification impact the ability of sea life to form shells. This resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Brian Ehlert, Steven White

High School Assessment - Tacoma LNG: Conflicting Proposals

Is Liquified Natural Gas needed in the Port of Tacoma? This task, by ClimeTime educators, is designed for students in grades 9-12 studying chemistry or environmental science. Students discuss their daily relationship to methane energy systems and marine-land environments, then they develop their abilities to compare and write arguments for managing the community’s energy needs. Resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

Material Type: Assessment

Authors: Korey Peterson, Tom Hathorn

Grade 1 - Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects: Plants and Their Parts

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.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Georgia Boatman, Barbara Soots, Ellen Ebert, Kimberley Astle, Washington OSPI OER Project

Kindergarten - Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects: Tackling Trash

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. 

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Georgia Boatman, Barbara Soots, Ellen Ebert, Kimberley Astle, Washington OSPI OER Project

First Grade Elementary Science and Integrates Subjects-Sky Explorers

The First Grade Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects, Sky Explorers uses observation of the sun and moon in the sky as a phenomena for exploring patterns of objects in the sky.  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.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Module, Reading

Author: Georgia Boatman

Fifth Grade Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects: Local Ecosystem Restoration

This Fifth Grade Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects - Local Ecosystem Restoration,   includes detailed lesson plans, materials, and activities for students to understand the big ideas of:What impact do invasive species have on an ecosystem?How can humans create riparian areas within an ecosystem in order to return the ecosystem to healthier state?It is part of Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects project, a statewide Clime Time collaboration among Washington Educational Service Districts 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. 

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Authors: Washington OSPI OER Project, Lorianne Donovan