SEER is working in partnership with Ten Strands on several projects aimed at supporting the State of California, school districts, and teachers efforts to implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and STEM learning by implementing education strategies. Some of these activities are described below.
Project I. Aligning California's Adopted Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) to the NGSS
Project II. Developing and Supporting the San Mateo Environmental Learning Collaborative
The San Mateo ELC is working with the San Mateo County Office of Education, seven nonformal science education organizations, and 90 K–8 teachers from school districts across the county.
This project will help teachers and nonformal science education organizations better understand the Next Generation Science Standards.
Support the teachers in the development of NGSS-based units of study that integrate instruction in the NGSS and CCSS through Environment-Based Education (EBE).
Provide students and teachers with more opportunities to use their local environment and outdoor education locations as contexts for succeeding with the new standards.
Help teachers learn how to effectively use California's EEI Curriculum to support NGSS-centric teaching and learning.
Project III. Writing Vignettes that Show Teachers the NGSS Through an Environmental Lens
SEER served as the Principal Consultant for California's EEI Curriculum so this highly experienced writing team drafted a series of K-8 vignettes that tie NGSS instruction to California's Environmental Principles and Concepts. Many of these vignettes have been incorporated into the current draft of California's new Science Curriculum Framework. This work will help teachers envision how to effectively teach the NGSS.
Project IV. Providing NGSS Information to Environmental Organizations with Work Schools
SEER has worked with the National Wildlife Federation, North American Association for Environmental Education, and the Campaign for Environmental Literacy to produce webinars related to the NGSS. These webinars are available here.
Project V. Educating the Public about the Environmental Content in the NGSS
Ten Strands and SEER have published a series of blogs to educate the public about the environmental connections within the NGSS. Ten Strands' blog covers this as well as other related topics, it is available here. SEER's blog posts are focussed on the NGSS and topics related to bringing Environment-Based Education into the classroom, they are available here.
If You Are Interested in Learning More about Environment-Based Education
See Dr. Lieberman's recent book, Education and the Environment: Creating Standards-Based Programs for Schools and Districts. Published by Harvard Education Press, this timely book provides an innovative guide to creating and implementing Environment-Based Education, a new type of instruction that creates standards-based lessons which connect academic content with local environmental investigations and engage students in all Three Dimensions of the NGSS.
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