Tel: 916-278-5487
Science in the River City Workshops
Workshops: October 24, 2023
On Unstable Ground: Resetting Kids Brains for Student Wellnesss and Improved Learning
Peter Mayfield, Cali Fraser, and Chris Griesemer
Join Peter Mayfield and Cali Fraser from Gateway Mountain Center and SASP Director, Chris Griesemer for activities to deepen awareness in how movement, sensory awareness practices and connection to nature can help youth learn, regulate and reconnect with themselves in a modern day steeped in technology. In part, we will explore how being on "unstable ground" can reset the brain for our kids and move them toward wellness in life and in the classroom. Participants should wear comfortable shoes.
Designed for Grade Levels K-12
Physics with a BANG!
Liz Johnson
How do we bring the universe down to Earth? The universe is 13.7 billion years old, but how do we know? Who put this Earth and Space Science in my Physics standards?? In this workshop, you will learn how to make abstract astronomical concepts HANDS-ON. Connect students’ ESS learning to more traditional physics standards. An emphasis is placed on students constructing arguments from observational evidence and tying it to scientific principles (a la CER). Topics to be covered include spectroscopy, measuring distances in space, and Hubble’s Law.
Designed for Grade Levels 9-12
Workshops: November 28, 2023
Exploring Pollinators Using Your
School Site
Lorie Hammond
This multi-faceted workshop will discuss how to create a pollinator garden of any scale at your school site, and why pollinators and native plants that support them are so important. Participants will be introduced to data gathering tools appropriate for all grade levels, and especially for a school-wide project where data is shared. Various ways of analyzing data at different levels will also be discussed. We will cover both science and math activities for all grade levels, with an emphasis on the primary grades.
Designed for Grade Levels TK-3
Mars' Interior: How do we know what's inside?
Melissa Marcucci
Join me as we explore the behavior of seismic waves and use patterns in the data to derive the relationship between wave speed, frequency, and length in various materials. This lesson sequence uses student observations to develop and revise over time both a concpetual and mathematical model that not only explains patterns we see in the data, but how scientisits know what the earth is made up of. We then apply this knowledge to understanding the interior of Mars!
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
Any Kid Can Write a CER
Michele Hetland
How do we support every kid in writing a CER? It begins with talk. Participants will learn techniques for engaging students in partner and table talk to elicit claims, evidence and reasoning. They will then progress to whole class scientist circles where students will engage in argument with each other and refine evidence and reasoning. Various tips and instructions will be given to show how to give students many attempts for practice without the teacher having to grade everything. Finally, participants will be given ideas and scaffolds to help students construct their own claim, find their own evidence, and come up with their own reasoning. These techniques work well for all kids including those with IEPs and limited English.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-8
Workshops: December 12, 2023
Let’s Discuss! Promoting Whole Class Discussion in Primary Grades
Kate Elliott
Learn how to facilitate group discussions that allow students to clarify their own ideas and increase their levels of cognitive and behavioral engagement to make their learning visible. During this workshop, teachers would engage with grade specific phenomena to create a sample discussion using grade level appropriate vocabulary, sentence stems, and talk moves. Leave with ready-to-use materials for leading a group discussion.
Designed for Grade Levels TK-2
Modeling Essentials with MBER Natural Selection
Julie Harr
Are you new to modeling? Would you like a refresher on the Modeling Triangle and Talk moves to move students toward sensemaking and model building in the classroom? We will be reviewing the essentials of modeling through the lens of the MBER Natural Selection Unit. We will explore three different stories of change over time using activities and data sets from the Galapagos Islands, peppered moths, and antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
Develop Models For Understanding Sky and Temperature Phenomena
Rich Hedman
Collect data on shadow length & direction, the sun’s path in the sky, the motion of stars at night, and temperature over various time spans (a day, each month for a year) and at different latitudes (from the equator to each pole). Use the data patterns to develop and revise models (from basic to complex) for understanding day & night, the seasons, and related phenomena. Test the conceptual models using physical objects and computer simulations.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-8
You Don't Have to be Oppenheimer to Teach Nuclear Reactions
Brian Ellis
Tap into student curiosity to introduce simple quantitative models of nuclear processes. No radioactive elements required! Participate in a collaborative lesson sequence involving drawing, graphing, and absurd quantities of dice.
Designed for Grade Levels 9-12
Workshops: January 30, 2024
We have two 3-part series offered this spring in addition to our stand alone workshops. Attend all three for a comprehensive look into STEM Integration of Materials Science or Environmental Literacy, or only attend 1-2 workshops in the series. Attending the first workshop is not a pre-requisite for attending the following ones.
Educator Environmental Literacy Series
Living the EP&Cs: Cultivating Connections Between Humans and Natural Systems in the Capital Region
Austin Roughton and Todd Gillihan
We live, work and play in an ecologically rich and diverse region of the state that informs our sense of place in both seen and unseen ways. By better understanding our place-based identity, dependencies and attachments we can deepen our impact as science educators and inspire students’ own connections to place. In this workshop we use California’s Environmental Principles and Concepts as lenses through which to identify, examine and cultivate our shared connections to the Capital Region’s natural systems. Engage in activities and discussions to assess and build educator environmental literacy, and leverage the power of the Science and Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts to strengthen your classroom practice.
Designed for Grade Levels K-12
STEM Integration of Materials Science in Physical Science Classroom Series
Level Up Polymers
Mafe Aguilar
Learn about the construction of polymers by combining Polyvinyl Alcohol and Sodium Borate. Students can observe and describe the properties of a prepared substance; observe the nature of a polymer; describe how cross linking affects a polymer using models, drawings, discussion. Engage in engineering challenge in developing a polymer based on specific criteria.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
Engineering Models in the Elementary Classroom
Ingrid Salim
In this workshop, participants will explore several engineering challenges for students in grades 3-5 centered around the engineering NGSS. Participants will view the content lead-in for the challenges, and then will participate in them to experience the process. Participants will engage in discussion about how to debrief such experiences for maximum student learning. Digital Thinksheets, materials lists and slides will all be available for participant use in the classroom, and teachers will leave with their own engineering designs to use as models.
Designed for Grade Levels 3-5
Cool (Very Cold!) Science
Liz Shoemaker
Learn what it takes to collect ice cores from some of the toughest conditions on Earth and how we can use these to travel back in time to understand our changing climate. Expand your own understanding of climate science and how we know what we know about Earth's climate past from the study of our cryosphere. Students will be able to identify patterns in the data themselves and hear from the scientists who collected it.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
Workshops: March 5, 2024
Educator Environmental Literacy Series
Spaces of Discovery: Tapping into your School Site’s Potential
Austin Roughton and Todd Gillihan
Consider your school’s potential to be a space where learning happens inside and outside the classroom! Any schoolyard can be a place to notice, wonder and explore alongside your students, but how do we move in this direction?
Designed for Grade Levels K-12
STEM Integration of Materials Science in Physical Science Classroom Series
Re imagine Composites
Mafe Aguilar
Check back for the full description of this workshop.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
5th Grade Particle Model: Sucking on a Lifesaver
Elaine Trull
In this learning sequence, students explore the phenomena of materials (Lifesavers) dissolving in water. We will participate in Sucking on a Lifesaver as learners and then we will transition to facilitators and we will explore the rest of the Learning Sequence. Teachers will take home the Entire Particle Model Part 1 Learning Sequence and Slide Deck to take back to implement in their classrooms.
Designed for Grade Levels K-5
Meaningful Grading as a Collaboration Tool
Brian Ellis and Melissa Marcucci
Teaching and assessing the NGSS standards with fidelity remains a major challenge at many schools. In this workshop, we will explore practical methods for sparking conversations about standards-based learning. Participants will then work together to reexamine assessment practices and write 3D NGSS assessment items that can be taken back to the classroom. These discussions can be a powerful opportunity to affect change!
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
We have two 3-part series offered this spring in addition to our stand alone workshops. Attend all three for a comprehensive look into STEM Integration of Materials Science or Environmental Literacy, or only attend 1-2 workshops in the series. Attending the first workshop is not a pre-requisite for attending the following ones.
Workshops: April 2, 2024
We have two 3-part series offered this spring in addition to our stand alone workshops. Attend all three for a comprehensive look into STEM Integration of Materials Science or Environmental Literacy, or only attend 1-2 workshops in the series. Attending the first workshop is not a pre-requisite for attending the following ones.
Educator Environmental Literacy Series
Community Stewardship: Environmental Literacy in Action
Austin Roughton and Todd Gillihan
What defines a community? What does stewardship look like? Environmental literacy is foundational for critical thinking and change-making.
In this workshop we will work through a process to define and engage in community stewardship by empowering educators and students to lean into their expertise and connections to the places where they live, learn and play. Participants will leave with place-based teaching strategies and project ideas that foster community stewardship.
Designed for Grade Levels K-12
STEM Integration of Materials Science in Physical Science Classroom Series
Materials Failure Analysis
Mafe Aguilar
Check back for the full description of this workshop.
Designed for Grade Levels 6-12
Using Tools for Teachers to Design Water-wise Habitats
Kelli Quan
Tired of creating science lessons from scratch or finding local, relevant phenomena to explore? Join us as we dive into Smarter Balanced Tools for Teachers. We will examine the formative assessment and instructional resources available online while specifically experiencing one of the lessons called, “Water-wise Habitat Design Challenge” written by classroom teacher Nelly Tsai. In this lesson, students design a water-wise habitat and use claim, evidence and reasoning (CER) skills to justify the design! Students will sort plant information cards to evaluate which plants are best for conserving water during drought and providing habitats for wildlife. Following this analysis, students will propose a water-wise habitat design and support their design with evidence and reasoning.
Designed for Grade Levels 1-8
Making Math Meaningful in Chemistry
Antoinette Corbin
Are students struggling with stoichiometry? Are they able to make connections to chemistry and math? Learn fun ways to introduce dimensional analysis to chemistry students. Students do "math" everyday in ways they don't connect. Learn how our pathways have connected dimensional analysis to food and medicine and how we prepare them for Stoichiometry.
Designed for Grade Levels 9-12