Thank you! We want to thank and appreciate you for everything you are doing for students, each other, and our communities during these unprecedented times.
Please continue to take care of yourselves, access services as needed for yourself or others, and contact ODE if you would like additional information or support.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to Deb Bailey, STEM Education Specialist, Noelle Gorbett, Science Assessment Specialist, or Jamie Rumage, Science Education Specialist, if you have any questions or concerns.
K-5 and High School COVID-19 and Health Equity Units
3-5 Elementary School Units: The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear example of how science and society are connected, and these units explore how different communities are impacted by the virus through the lens of historical inequities in society. These multidisciplinary units include integrated social-emotional learning and supports for teachers and families in addressing these emotional topics.
*K-2 Elementary School Units will be launched on September 30th.
High School Units: These units focus on the science of infectious disease, transmission, and vaccines. Students will learn how COVID-19 impacts communities across the U.S. differently depending on factors that affect the spread of COVID-19. OpenSciEd developed these units in partnership with BSCS Science Learning and current classroom teachers from across the country. These materials can be appropriate for social studies and health courses.
Digital Workshop: Civic Engagement and the Ethics of Public Health
December 12, 2020,
Civic Engagement and the Ethics of Public Health features NEW digital-ready Project Citizen resources and materials you can use in your classroom now, and we’ll talk about how Project Citizen can work remotely.
This workshop is sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Wayne Morse Center for Law & Politics, whose annual theme revolves around biotechnology and medical ethics. In addition to all the Project Citizen resources, we will share brand new lessons and materials you can use to encourage your students to critically think about relevant health and medical issues in society right now as we live with the Covid-19 pandemic. These lessons feed into the Project Citizen process, using a variety of strategies that encourage students to look around their community to discover and analyze how public health issues are being handled.
One fun way to participate is by bringing along your Science colleagues to collaborate on cross-content projects, weaving Project Citizen into a variety of scientific, medical, technological, and bioethical issues. Please invite them to come with you!
Henrietta Lacks, Bio-Ethics Decisions, the Constitution
100 Years of Pandemic & Public Health Policy
Tracking, Tracing, and Privacy
Oregon and Covid-19
Register here. A stipend will be provided to attendees. You will get zoom login info the day before the workshop.
2021 USA Biolympiad
The USA Biolympiad (USABO) is a competition for high school students who are passionate about biology. The competition has four tiers. The first tier, 50-minute Open Exam, is open to all students nationwide. In the second tier, the top 500 students in the USA from Tier 1 sit for a 2-hour exam to determine the top 20 students in the USA. The students identified as National Finalists move forward to the third tier and the National Finals, a two-week training program with lectures, discussions and hands-on lab training conducted with instructors from top level universities to include Stanford, MIT, UC San Diego, George Washington University, and others. Students are evaluated during this program and the top four students compete against 80 other countries in Tier 4 International Biology Olympiad (IBO). Students at each tier have declared that participation in the ISABO has been a life-changing experience.
Consider assigning roles to support students once they are in breakout rooms. How to Use a Breakout Room Notetaker from Shana Ramin (@ShanaTeaches) gives instructions and a template you may copy to use a notetaker role in breakout rooms. In this document from Stanford, roles can be assigned such as first-to-speak, timekeeper, equity monitor, or questioner.
Provide an equitable method to assign roles - person with the shortest hair, person with the closest birthday, etc.
Critical Orientations: Indigenous Studies and Outdoor Education
This free, on-demand course supports outdoor educators in engaging with culturally responsive incorporation of indigenous studies concepts into outdoor education curriculum and programming. While outdoor school programs in Oregon serve fifth and sixth grade students, course content applies broadly to all outdoor and experiential education.
Course Overview
Created by Dr. Spirit Brooks and Dr. Leilani Sabzalian, this course introduces the following concepts:
Land Acknowledgement
Colonization
Native Representation in Outdoor Education
Sovereignty and Self-Determination
Critically analyzing curriculum using the 6 P’s
Land-Based Education
What You'll Learn
This course is designed to surface some of the common assumptions and misinformation about Indigenous people and cultures, particularly as they relate to outdoor school in Oregon.
You will:
Learn to critically analyze how Indigenous peoples and knowledge are included and represented in outdoor education and the consequences of bias, misrepresentation, and appropriation.
Reflect on how Indigenous studies concepts complicate and enrich our practice as outdoor educators.
Discover alternative curricular framings and orientations and support peer collaboration to develop ideas for different contexts using curricular self-evaluation tools.
Of course, you do not have involved with 5th or 6th-grade outdoor school to access this course, and its information applies to a broader scope.
Register here for this free series to receive the Zoom link and password that we use every session and join on weeks that work best for you.
The Oregon Canvas User Group
The Oregon Canvas User Group (OCUG) is coming to you this fall! OCUG will be held virtually on Tuesday, November 10, with sessions throughout the day.
This event is supported by Oregon Canvas users across the state who come together to share their knowledge, experience, and Canvas experiments with other educators. OCUG is for everyone from first-time Canvas users to experts. Want Canvas to do more for you? Join the group!
We need you to share your Canvas knowledge with OCUG. If you have an idea for a 30 or 50 minute session to present, please submit a session proposal. (The session proposal form will also serve as your registration.)
Teaching K-12 Science and Engineering During a Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic is resulting in widespread and ongoing changes to how the K-12 education system functions, including disruptions to science teaching and learning environments. This guide and video from the Board on Science Education describes what high-quality science and engineering education can look like during this time of great uncertainty. The publication includes guidance—with an emphasis on the needs of district science supervisors, curriculum leads, and instructional coaches—about how K-12 science and engineering learning experiences can:
function during disruptions to education systems;
adapt as needed to support students and their families dealing with ongoing changes to instructional and home environments; and
remain at high quality or even increase in quality, even if time for instruction is reduced this year.
The guide and video is based on reports from the National Academies that focus on teaching science and engineering in grades K-12. It also incorporates input and examples from educators across the country.
