CSEN Meeting
September 6, 2017
SOS by Hilary Pedicord
· Strategies for framing (handout) – NNOCCI (national network for ocean and climate change interpretation) great resources
· Hook at beginning – Question: What is the big worry about climate change? Poll and projected answers as word cloud.
· Stepped through a series of datasets showing connections across the globe, temp anomalies over the 20th century, etc. Used the strategies to frame the discussion
· End talking about solutions and asked what we can do.
· Add website for the SOS on flatscreen
Becca Hathaway – how to discuss climate change (climate change communication)
· Actvity #1: Snowball activity – write word or phrase about what you are hearing regarding CC, throw and pick up another, share out
· Scientists
o Complicated graphs and data set presentations – they will understand it!
· Global Warming’s Six Americas – survey across the US (Yale Program on CC Communication; George Mason University, Center for CC Communication)
o 2009: 7% dismissive; 51% alarmed/concerned
o 2016: 9% dismissive; 52% alarmed/concerned
· video: Global Weirdness, Katherine Hayhoe (evangelical Christian, CC not at odds w/ her faith, she’s a physicist)
o more data doesn’t move the hardcore denialists
o education, communication, marketing
o info on how it affects us, that makes a difference, especially if it’s something the person cares about. Find something that you have in common – children, fishing, hunting, etc. (genuine interest and make connection)
o offer a solution so it’s not viewed as overwhelming – inspire to act
§ homeowner – save money
§ children – safer on playground with heat waves
§ business – more jobs in solar than natural gas industry
Discussion points
· Mary G – teachers need to teach the science
· Lori R – need to weave the personal side of CC into classroom
· Mike O – working with teachers to
· Linda L (NREL) – undergrads are coming with a “call to arms”
· Activity #2
o Write down a name of somebody you would be talking to who’s a denier
o Find a partner
o Take turns playing each part
§ How did it feel to play each role?
§ Which strategies were most effective?
§ How you apply to in your work and personal lives?
o Possible strategies
§ Really understand what they care about? Is it government overreach and laws, job loss, what?
§ Why Inconvenient Truth didn’t hit home? Faith-based tables and looked at it through the moral stewardship. Take this tact.
§ Everybody has a right to their belief system. Science needs to be presented as not a belief and is based on evidence
· Neil deGrassi “Science is not something you believe in.”
§ US defense and safety
· What you can do with children
o Strategies for sharing science
§ Citizen science
o Focus on impacts
o Engage in solutions (see slide) – local solutions, focus on these conversations
· Info:
o
o www.scied.ucar.edu - available resources
o Elementary GLOBE – Climate Storybook for elementary, she’s got lots of books to give away (class sets etc). There are other books too.
New outreach programs by DMNS – available for booking now for spring
· Talking in-depth with teachers, district leaders, etc. focus groups, prototyping ideas, final stages of developing programs (human-centered design approach – iterative)
o Dec 11 – launch new programs
o Improving booking program – teachers can book directly online
· New programs – 3 themes, set up immersive environment
o Mission to Mars – upper elementary. Space walk, repairing,
o invisible Forces all Around Us – upper elementary. Physics, electricity etc.
o Wild Census – pre-school – 2. Transforms classroom to natural world as well as city dweller, pretend play. Include creative play.
· Delivery concept – boxes can go throughout the entire state
o Lost Worlds of CO – fossils and recreate the world in past time
o Biomimicry, Animals and the Machine Inside
o Energy Resources – what they are, game to discover resources and how best use them
Sharing by Science District Leaders
Share thoughts on where district is on CC
Share thoughts about other big initiatives that might impact teaching of CC
Mike O’Toole – SVVSD
· Wealth of resources, but how comfortable teachers are with teaching it. CC communication resources.
· Using technology – can we capture the learning process
o Explains Everything program
o Videos, annotate diagrams, etc.
Cherry Creek
Sherri Dennstedt – Middle school
· Rolling out and building STEM Cohorts – NGSS/SEP
· Focus students on argumentation; 7th grade teachers not shy to teach CC
· not district-wide yet
· passed bond – innovation spaces in MS and Career and Innovation HS will be built
· make teachers comfortable to teaching using technology
· lots of evaluation
Sarah North - Elementary
· student engagement is very high across district love science and writing about it
· big challenge is the time – math and literacy main focus. Work with teachers to integrate this
Buck Institute – PBL. Creek may open it to other teachers in October
Jacquie Adkinds – Jeffco
· nothing specific around CC, but Cheryl Manning at Evergreen HS is working with lots of teachers on misconceptions and how to address this with students
· new superintendent – charge: aggressively authentic
o big push by community PBL (problem based learning and project based learning)
o supporting ?? Buck Institute
Laura Grissam (1st year) – Poudre SD
· some HS including Earth System Science courses – teaching CC
· other HS belief getting ES in other classes and are good thinkers
o really pushing them on this with the national conversation
· educational technology – using quite a bit
· PBL
o Use probes to collect data, report back to stakeholders like parents (collected data on AQ with parents parked and running cars after-school pickup)
o Persuasion and writing
· Blended learning
o Think about and study the problem outside the classroom
Open Floor
- Any schools or SD’s using Citizen Science programs (maybe a few teachers)
- PBL – are the kids really getting the key concepts out of it? How to help teachers build comfort level with the messiness of process and tie it back to standards, assessments?
- All encompassing, science embedded in it. Every standard, content included. End – communication with audience other than teacher
- STEM Starters – collection of what they’ve learned, design process
- Along with PBL – creating a community thinkers, not just about the end-product but it’s about the learning they gathered on the way
- 21st century skills
- Buck Institute – start with the standards and based the PBL on those standards. Bring in their partners in the summer to hear about a real-life problem with teachers and students. Get feedback from students on what would be interesting to tackle this. Teachers ID standards, cross content topics, PBLs and time of year, ask partners to come back when PBL is taught.
- Informals or higher ed – how are you responding this information from SD’s?
- How to engage community partners so they talk the same talk. Maybe need an intermediary. NGSS, STEM doesn’t mean anything to a industry professional – they want a product to hire.
- UNC – Institute for Rural Educators. How do we help the districts that don’t attend CSEN meetings? They don’t have the resources that the Front Range districts have.
- How do we get more districts here?
- EE in Boulder – offer a menu of all the programs that are available (number of programs can be overwhelming). Do something like this in CSEN.
- Many districts in rural areas don’t have the leadership. BOCES help with contacts, FB streaming video
- Used to have Eisenhower Funds to have BOCES pull in teachers for training in the rural areas
- How do we mobilize the community?
- Clearinghouses – people don’t know about it
- Rurals – web-based live, tape for asynchronous and follow-up possible with questions/dialogue. Something tacked onto CSC.
Break into groups of 4 and discuss what topics you would like CSEN to focus upon:
Group 1
Relevance
Argumentation
Citizen science – locally relevant, bring in local experts
Group 2
Using technologies
Collaborating
Sharing resources
Group 3
Buidling and sharing community partnerships
Learning to argue from evidence
Relevant citizen science projects
Group 4
INSPIRE grantees present on project and how to align with curriculum
Pre-service teacher training
How to leverage community partners (including career pathways)
Group 5 (all related and connected with NGSS)
Explore natural sources/energy use in CO and connect with curriculum/social studies
Unpack science practices relative to discourse so have productive argumentation
Updates of science standard revisions at each CSEN meeting
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