WSTA Presents Bite-Size PL - A Time Friendly Way to Include or Enhance NGSS in Your Class: Using Earthweek

Mark Watrin - A Time Friendly Way to Include or Enhance NGSS in Your Classroom: Using Earthweek: Dairy of a Changing World

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Join our WSTA Membership Coordinator, retired science teacher and Dig School Field Educator as he provides suggestion on how to enhance NGSS in your classroom using EarthWeek.

• Earthweek: Diary of a Changing World is published weekly, featuring data collected in that previous week.  Students can record, analyze and ask questions about that brand-new data just like a scientist when they collect new and original data.  So many of our students learning experiences utilize “known data” or predetermined experiment results, Earthweek is a chance to help students authentically encounter original data to help explain “How and why the Earth is constantly changing.”

  Many schools and districts still struggle to include the NGSS Earth Science domain into traditional course sequences like Biology, Chemistry & Physics.  Earthweek can be an effective tool to integrate and connect the Earth Sciences in existing structures.   In the elementary grades Earthweek can facilitate integration of science with multiple other subjects such as math, geography (social studies) and English.  Understanding the Nature of Science, a prime NGSS objective has often been challenging for teachers.  Earthweek is uniquely structured to model the process of constantly adding new data to existing understandings of our world.

  Mark Watrin facilitates WSTA’s Washington Earth History program for teachers. In 1988, the same year Earthweek debuted, he began teaching full year Geology as an elective at Battle Ground High School one of the few high school level Geology classes offered even before NGSS standards.   Mark is still active as a volunteer bringing science lessons to elementary classrooms.

  During this session we will:

• Access and use data samples from Earthweek
• Look at multiple ways to utilize Earthweek, from year-long, class unit or quick lesson.
• Look at the connections to NGSS standards K-12.
• Tackle student Earth science misconceptions and how the “News” is often the source.
• Open a discussion about Earth science learning opportunities for teachers and students

Register at the Washington State Science Teachers (WSTA) website under Event Calendar or at the following link: https://wsta.wildapricot.org/EventCalendar

After you register, you will be sent a Zoom link to attend. To obtain clock hour information or questions, contact Don Pruett, WSTA Professional Development Coordinator at: puyalluppruett@gmail.com.